


Emotional Ties

by Leticheecopae



Series: Dealings with Demons [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Demonstuck, Dubious Consent, Gore, M/M, Mental Abuse, NSFW, Oral, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Themes, Violence, death mentions, family strain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:54:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3853138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leticheecopae/pseuds/Leticheecopae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mituna's been in a coma for almost two months, and Sollux has been spiraling. It's all because of that prick Cronus, the one who ran off just a few week ago. All his fault.</p><p>At least, Sollux is going to wish it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Told ya I'd bring some friends.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cover by [Cynideore](cynideoreo.tumblr.com)

The machines beep in rhythm with Mituna’s never changing heartbeat. He’s been in the coma for almost two months now, never changing, never moving. The most that his family ever gets are weird brain waves. They come suddenly, sending the machines spinning for a few moments before his brain is nothing but dead weight again. 

Sollux hates being here. It’s the last place he wants to be right now, but he forces himself to come once a week, even if it’s just to stare at him. Unlike himself, Mituna has never been a fan of being alone. He notices the fresh flowers on the table and notes to himself that Latula was here not long ago. It’s eyebright this time, if he’s remembering the name right. Many tiny flowers in a pot next to his bed. The old orchids are there as well, withering slowly. Sollux wants to throw them out.

"Thup, bro," Sollux mumbles as he tosses his bag on the floor. He sits heavily in the padded chair made for someone a good half foot shorter than him. His fingers lacing together and the tips tap together as he lets his foot bounce against the floor. His words come out lisp heavy. "Thtill can't come up with shit for thith yearth trick." It's the week of Halloween, and while most high school kids would be ecstatic, Sollux is anything but. He hasn't started on making his annual Halloween virus to crash the school computers and get November 1st off. It feels weird without Mituna next to him, pointing out the most ridiculously offensive things that they could added to piss off the teachers. Even when he was a freshman in college, Mituna had spent a night skyping him to come up with random shit to put into it.

"Can't think of a thingle fucking thing to out do latht year. Don't want to repeat, it'll make it too eathy for the dithtrict to trathe." Not entirely true, but somewhat. The only time the school got close to catching Sollux was during his freshman year, but even then, he had done a damn good job covering his tracks. Silence trickles in for a few moments, the only sound being the machines, and Sollux’s foot against bleached linoleum. 

"I went to thee Cronuth," Sollux says suddenly, and his lips curl into a sneer. "He'th gone, no one knowth where. Jutht up and left. Can't blame him, what with hith brother being such a prick, worthe than you." The laugh he gives is ugly. He picks at his nails beds.

The beeping of the machine is Mituna's response; a single monotone sounds that makes Sollux want to grind his teeth. "Come on, Tuna, give me thomething here," Sollux says quietly, staring at his brother's face. "Tell me what the fuck happened." He doesn't believe the story that Cronus fed his family and the cops. There is no way falling from barely five feet up could cause this amount of brain damage. Fifteen feet maybe, but five isn’t nearly high enough to produce the velocity needed for Mituna’s injuries. 

The anger comes as swiftly as it always has, throwing any sadness into a wall and pummeling it into oblivion. "I'm going to figure out what he did," he spits as he goes to grab his brother's hand. "I'll bring him here and forthe him to thee what he did to you. Then I'll throw him off the fucking roof. You two can be roomieth again. Then-"

The sudden beeping startles Sollux. He whips his head to look at the screen. Mituna's brain waves are spiking, hard, his heart rate is up, and Sollux's hand hurts. Looking down, he see his fingers are turning white from Mituna's grip.

"Tuna," Sollux whispers. "Hey!" he screams. "He'th waking up, thomeon-" The tremors make him freeze. "Tuna?" he asks as his brother's body seizes. "Mituna!"

The nurse that runs in looks first at Mituna, then Sollux. Her face looks slightly pale. The heart monitor is going so quickly it's blurring in Sollux's ears. 

She runs and hits a button on the wall. "Out," she yells at Sollux as more people spill in.

"He's seizing," one person says. 

"Coding!" Another cries. 

"Get him out of here," says the first nurse. One of the people grab Sollux, he's not sure who, because he can't look away from Mituna. He's gone totally pale, his hand still tight on Sollux’s, and it doesn't let go when they try to pull Sollux away.

"Mituna!" he's yelling, not realizing what's coming out of his mouth. Mituna's body pulls forward as the nurse picks Sollux up and tries to take him away. A second one surges forward and grabs their hands.

"No, Mituna, no." Sollux thrashes, free hand and feet kicking and pushing. 

"Get him out!" A nurse screams. The machine suddenly goes flat, and Sollux is jerked away the second Mituna's hand goes lax. He's screaming as the shorter nurse struggles to get him to the door, and then shoves him from the room.

"Give me a-" is all he hears before the door is slammed and all the sounds becomes muffled. Sollux launches for it. 

He can barely see, his glasses skewed and eyes filled with tears. He bangs on the door, yelling, crying. 

"Come on," a new nurse says, grabbing him by the arm. He tries to pull away. "Please, honey, we don't want to have to-"

"Get the fuck off me," he screams at her, pulling his arm away. "Mituna, Mitu-"

Hands are upon him in seconds, tight, strong hands that hold his upper body still. He keeps screaming, trying to kick, but he can’t get away. The needle slides into his upper arm a second later. "I'm sorry," the woman is saying as he is kept still by the hands. He can feel something cold spreading through him. "This is for your own safety. Just calm down."

"What did you..." Sollux tries to ask as he shakes his head. "Mit..." The world swims around him, and all Sollux can see are faces, swirling faces.

“Get him out of here," circles in his head with a back beat of charging paddles and ringing shocks.

\---

“Do they have any more information?” Latula asks over the speakers. Sollux’s head is still groggy from the needle to the arm, but he’s not bad. The hospital staff couldn’t keep him either, so the second he had learned that Mituna had stabilized but could not be seen, Sollux had ran. A few nurses had tried to stop him, but he had just jerked his backpack away from them and headed to his car.

“Of courthe not,” he replies, anger underlying every word. “They have no idea about what could have made him move.” He swerves around a car in front of him and guns it, speeding around it without a second thought. His mind is flashing idea after idea about what could have made Mituna do that. Had he heard him? Was he getting better? Why wouldn’t the fuckers just let him see his brother? 

He cuts off a minivan and gets a honk for his troubles. He does it to another vehicle and gets a lovely little duet going.

“Sollux, are you driving?!” Her voice is accusing, angry.

“How elthe wath I going to go thee him,” he snaps. “Dad hathn’t been home before midnight for weekth and mom ith traveling like it’th her thecond honeymoon.”

“Sollux, are you taking your pills?” Her voice is much too soft.

Sollux’s teeth grit together.

“You can’t be driving when you’re not on the pills, Sollux. Your episodes are-”

“Too volatile, yeah fucking yeah,” he spits, though he does let up on the gas pedal. 

“How long have you been missing doses?” Latula asks, and god that isn’t a question he wants to answer. It has to have been almost a month ago, and the mania had hit hard, the lows even harder. But at this point he’ll take ‘em. It’s better than trying to keep his emotions in check while his brother lies in what could very well be his death bed.

“Not long,” he lies. 

Latula sounds like she is going to say something to that, but instead she sighs. “I’ve been talking with Terezi,” she says instead, and Sollux finds his foot mashing down on the gas pedal again.

“Yeah, and what’th the witch gotta thay?” he asks. Nothing Terezi has done has produced anything fruiticious. All the flowers, crystals, it just brightens up the room and does nothing for the body. 

“Don’t call her a witch.” Latula's voice is tense, and Sollux feels just a little bit of regret trying to form somewhere in the back of his skull. A blaring horn kills it quick.

“It’th what she ith, right?”

“You know she’s not,” Latula snaps. “And why do you always have to get so pissed off? She’s only trying to help in the ways she thinks she can. She’s no doctor or anything, but the stuff she knows helped Mituna when he was awake, so maybe she can fucking figure something out for when he’s stuck in his own head.”

Sollux grunts as he deaccelerates somewhat on the off ramp. “If he’th even in hith own head,” Sollux grumbles. Terezi had tried to have Sollux join them before, do that weird meditation crap. He knows Mituna only did it for Latula, to help her be closer to her sister, but he never said he hated it. Sollux refused to do something so psychotic.

“Whatever,” Latula grumbles over the phone. “Did you put the caraway seeds under his pillow like she asked last week?”

“Nope, why didn’t you? You were there yethterday.” There is silence for a moment. “What, didn’t think I wouldn’t notice the new flowerth?”

Latula gives a sound akin to an angry dog on a chain. “I couldn’t stop by the house and get it. That’s the whole reason we asked you to.”

“Yeah, well, didn’t have the time,” Sollux replies. It’s a lie, he has the seeds back at home. He’s planning on burning the stupid things. This flowery bullshit isn’t helping his brother, but destroying the shit Terezi gives him sure does feel good.

“Fine, if you don’t want to do the seeds, then don’t, but Terezi has another idea.” 

“I’m lithtening,” Sollux says in annoyance in the pause that follows. What plant is it going to be this time? A new paste to rub on his head? The doctors had loved that, coming in to find the three of them smearing a gray-green paste all over Mituna. They had immediately taken him away to be bathed. Sollux had said ‘I told you tho’. 

“She thinks a spirit board might work with him.”

“What, you mean one of thothe ouija thingth? You really think that’th gonna do shit?”

“Not a ouija,” Latula corrects. “According to Terezi those things are a piece of crap. She has a nice wood spirit board that she says has been blessed and everything. It’ll give clearer answers.”

“What, did she get a preithteth to queef on it or thomething.”

“Stop being a prick,” Latula snaps. Sollux smiles meanly to himself as he cuts off another car. 

“Terezi says the 1st would be the best day to do it. There’ll be a good charge in the air or something.” 

“Ooo, thoundth thpooky. Why don’t we jutht do it on Halloween and call it a theanthe? Mituna’th good as dead anywayth,” Sollux snaps, and there is nothing kind to it. 

“Do me a favor,” Latula spits, and he can hear the grit of tears in her voice. “Take your pills, fucking eat something because I know you haven’t, and be ready to be at the hospital on Friday.” The line disconnects.

“Yeah, sure.” Sollux reaches over to his phone and yanks it from the cord that connects it to the car.

On the residential streets he doesn’t go as fast, too many cops, but he sure as hell doesn’t watch where he’s going. He drives home to a symphony of honking horns directed by dozens of middle fingers.

He is none too kind to the car door as he slams it and walks into the empty house. Something tells him he needs to take better care of the car, it is Mituna’s after all. The rest of his brain doesn’t give a fuck as he makes his way upstairs to his room. His fingers need to move, he needs to shut off. 

Sollux throws his backpack onto the bed. He doesn’t care that he has homework from over a week ago still sitting on his desk, he shoves everything off of it. Papers, cans, plates, and a plethora of other trash and junk hit the floor. Sollux is pretty sure he hears a plate crack, but hey, plates are replaceable, and his mom has been wanting new ones.

“You want me there Friday,” he murmurs as he sits down in his Dad’s old office chair, the nice one that he gave him when he got the new one with extra lumbar support. “Then I’d better make sure I don’t have thchool.” He leans over and pulls open the front of Mituna’s old mini fridge and grabs an energy drink, the dinner of champions, and downs almost half of it in one go. He won’t be sleeping tonight, he doubts he even could, what with the how quickly the code is flashing through his brain, but he doesn’t care. It’s a good distraction, better than his lows that leave him sobbing in the shower.

The code flows out of him like he knows exactly what is supposed to happen. Flashes of color and dirty words, shitty memes of ‘spooky scary skeletons’ that will dance across the administrator’s computer and send the school spiralling into madness.

At 1:00am, he hears his father, Simon, come in, walking down the hall and past his room. He pauses outside. Sollux can hear his Father’s silence while he clacks away at the keys. He wants him to come in, yell at him to stop trying to hack into the pentagon and go the fuck to sleep before the FBI shows up. Sollux could never be sure if his father was joking or not when he said that, but he hasn’t heard it since Mituna had gone into intensive care.

When nothing happens and the feet just walk away, Sollux downs his third drink and chucks it at his wall. It hits with a very unfulfilling clang. He picks the plate up off the floor this time, chucks it, and listens to the crash. Pieces splitter as the ceramic shatters, and Sollux finds himself staring at it all for a moment. All the pretty pieces of one of his mother’s floral plates. 

He’s always hated those plates.

Sollux goes back to typing. His dad doesn’t come back. 

By the time he’s finished the thing it’s three am, and his eyes are going blurry. It doesn’t stop him from pushing forwards. It takes him another hour to hack the school, add a fake student, and create a time release from a turned in project. He makes sure that the file shows up to all of the teachers who teach primarily sophomores, and that it won’t appear until right after school, Thursday. Any teacher who checks their drop box after 3 pm will have multiple names of students to click through, and when one of them clicks this one, the school is going to go down.

He smiles at himself, finishes the fourth energy drink, and feels the caffeine send palpitations of false adrenaline through his body. “Trick or treat, bitcheth,” he says under his breath as he goes back to the video file to watch the loop that the virus will spread throughout the system. The song begins, the skeletons dance, and it takes Sollux all of five seconds to realize just how royally he has fucked this up.

Not a single thing looks like something Mituna would come up with.

Sollux stands up, grabs one of his two monitors, and chucks it across the room. It sails into the wall and rings with such a heavy thud, that Sollux wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up a few skeletons, himself. It is followed by the second monitor and then the keyboard. Keys pop off and fly every which way as Sollux bends down to grab for his tower.

“Sollux,” Simon yells as he bursts into the room in a haphazardly tied robe and boxers. “Sollux, no!” 

Sollux fights as he is grabbed by his forearms, the adrenaline of anger and high of caffeine making him surge in strength. It knocks his sleep torn father away, and then Sollux follows him. His fist comes down and connects with the man’s shoulder, and he can hear the grunt of pain as his fingers sing with their own sting. It makes him throw another punch, but this time it is caught, and Sollux finds himself pulled, spun, and pinned with his face to the wall.

“How long have you been off the meds?” are the first words out of his father’s mouth. That’s all anyone seems to care about anymore. The meds. Meds meds meds. 

“Fuck off,” Sollux snarls into the wall, hands trying to wrench away from his Dad’s grip. He kicks backwards. His father shoves one of his knees into the back of Sollux’s in response. Sollux’s feet go out from under him, and his Dad catches him.

“How. Long.” The words are stern, angry, and worried.

“How long have you been thleeping at the office?” Sollux asks, voice high and mocking. He tilts his head back to see his Dad, and watches some of the anger drain away.

“That doesn’t answer my que-”

“What, already forgot?” Sollux snarls. “Oh, not a good thign.” 

The hands on his arms go tight, and Sollux hopes they will bruise. He hopes that he has dark marks to dig his fingers into during class to stay awake. Use them as a bartering tool, to maybe get his Dad to finally come home for a night, and force him to eat the shitty packaged meals in their freezer together.

“Sollux,” Simon starts, and the hands get softer on his wrists instead of harsher. “I know I haven’t been around much, and I’m sorry for that, but that doesn’t excuse y-”

Sollux wrenches his arms away, turns, and shoves his father back. “Thave your thorrieth,” he bites out. From the floor he grabs some form of jacket and his backpack. “I don’t want to fucking hear it.” 

“Sollux,” Simon yells out as Sollux moves quickly out of his room and down the hall. He’s done tonight, fuck this house, fuck his father. “Sollux!” follows him out of the house as he walks out into the cold. October hasn’t been a forgiving month, and it has to be just barely in the forties. He pulls on the jacket, a hoodie, and throws his bag over his shoulder. He doesn't look back.

His feet take him towards the school. Another hour and the janitors will show up and can let him in. He can catch a couple hours of sleep in the library, and then decide if he even wants to give class a shot or not.

The wooded areas between subdivisions are the quickest way to the school. He picks out the path in fractured starlight, the new moon hiding in the darkness. He keeps his hands shoved deep in his pockets, forefingers picking at his thumbs. One starts to sting and feels sticky. He just smears the blood around.

There is no way he would have seen the root, not with how his eyes are bristling, and it catches hard on his foot. Sollux stumbles, falls, and hits an incline that takes him downwards. The freezing mud he lands in from a runoff pipe soaks through his left side in seconds. 

Sollux pushes himself up. Anger boils down somewhere deep, cooking his insides as his rage solidifies into one single word. “FffffuuUCK!” he screams into the dark as he half lays in the squalor. His hands ball into fists as he sits up.

“What do you fucking want!?” he yells skyward. “What more could you possibly take?”

“Probably not the best fucking question to ask.”

Sollux’s head twists around as he looks for where the voice is coming from. His breathing is no longer labored just because of his roll down the hill.

“Questions like that tend to just make shit worse, though I guess you’ve pretty much hit rock bottom. Laying in mud and shit before sun up. Great start to your day.” 

Sollux feels something behind him, and rolls over quickly. There is someone standing in the starlight, their features almost completely claimed by darkness. The eyes through, the eyes aren’t quite registering in Sollux’s brain. Eyes aren’t supposed to be their own light source.

“You see, shit head,” the guys voice says as he squats down, those two bright red orbs completely focussed on Sollux. “There is so much that I could take from you.” A hand touches his ankle, and Sollux kicks out. He hears the guy chuckle. “But there’s only one thing I really want.”

The movement that follows is too fast for Sollux to react to, and in a moment, he finds his body pinned by a warm weight above him. The red eyes come close enough to his face that he can see where mud has smeared on his glasses. 

“Get off,” he gasps as he tries to struggle out from underneath whoever this guy is. He’s smaller than him, but also broader, and stronger. His hands clench and unclench as rough hands pin his wrists, his legs try to buck up against the knees digging into his thighs, but nothing is working. 

The eyes above him go lidded, just the barest amount of red peeking out of the bottom. Sollux hears a deep intake breathe and slow sigh.

“Haven’t tasted this one on you yet,” the voice says, and Sollux tries to pull his head away as fast as he can when those eyes come close. He pushes his hair back into the mud as the guy nuzzles into his neck and shoulder, and Sollux lets out the slightest of horrified whimpers as a hot tongue traces up it to his ear.

“Let me go,” he starts saying. “Fucking let me go or I’ll thcream. I’ll thcream and thcream and you’ll-”

“And I won’t be here, Tholluth.” The fake lisp rings in his ears, and suddenly all the heat and pressure is gone.

Sollux finds himself frozen in the mud for a moment. “What the fuck,” he pants. _It’s the energy drinks. I’ve had too many. I’m hallucinating._ His head thrashes around as he tries to find the eyes again, but he sees nothing. 

On shaking legs he stands, his eyes scanning for whoever...whatever had just been on him. “I’m fucking loathing it,” Sollux pants as his body starts to shake. He takes a few steps before hearing a slight crunch. Looking down doesn’t do shit, but when he feels with his hands he finds his backpack. He grabs it, straightens, and falls back down in the mud. The eyes are right, fucking, there.

“Seriously? I didn’t even say boo,” the voice says as he looks down at Sollux, head tilted. Sollux watches his eyes slide shut again and that same strange inhale follows. “Fuck does fear smell good on you.”

Yeah, that isn’t fucking creepy at all. Sollux blinks, and the red is gone.

“Makes me want to crack open that thick skull of yours and see what comes pouring out.” Fingers run up the side of Sollux’s neck and he tosses his head, trying to figure out where he is now. “Would probably be a relief for you to feel your brains turn to jelly. Helped your brother.”

“Wh-who the fuck are you,” Sollux bites out as he tries to figure out what in the hell is happening. “How do you know Mituna?”

“I’m just an admirer,” is murmured in his ear. Sollux jerks forwards when the tongue comes back. His hands go into the mud as he pushes himself up.

“Well, maybe voyeur might be a better word,” the voice continues. “Or a scopophiliac? Do you think there's a word for someone who follows you around just because you smell fucking delicious?”

Sollux finally gets to his feet and spins. There is nothing. He freezes as hands wrap around his waist and slide into his front pockets.

“Would you relax,” the voice says, and he can feel a pressure against the back of his shoulders. “You're acting like a trapped dog, though I guess you are kind of a bitch." The body behind Sollux pushes against him, and Sollux tries to pull away. It doesn't work. "Besides, dumb ath,” the voice adds with a mimic of his lisp. “I’m not going to hurt you.” The hands jerk Sollux back against the other guy, pushing him right into him, and the fingers on his hips dig in painfully. “Much,” is whispered into his ear. 

Fear spikes, Sollux tries to push forwards, but the hands on his hips have him locked into place. 

The laughter that follows is clear and horrible, like listening to someone take joy from kicking a puppy. “You really are jumpy tonight. What? You drink too much of that poison you’re constantly pouring down that shriveled straw you call a throat? I mean, how many did you have tonight, four?”

How the fuck does he know that? “Who are you,” Sollux pants, hands gripping at the guy’s wrists. He can feel him pressing his nose against the mud matted back of his hoody.

“My names not really important, is it?” he asks as he nuzzles against his shoulder blades, the mud on Sollux’s back apparently doing nothing to deter him. 

“To me it’th fucking important,” Sollux bites out. His nails dig into this guys arms, but he doesn’t seem to feel them.

“More important than my intentions?” Another tug at his hips. “Wow, great priorities. Remind me to make you the fucking president of the planning committee.” 

Sollux swallows and feels his body shudder. Raped and murdered in the middle of a drainage ditch, classy. Or maybe just beaten? They could put him in with Mituna. It makes a hole of despair well up in his stomach and bottom out.

“I love how you switch like that,” the guy behind him says, and there is something not so...wholesome about his voice. “You’re just so fucking,” he pauses. “Twisted. No boundaries or lines, just all jumbled up and spewing whatever makes it to the front of your skull first.”

“W-what are you talking about?” Sollux asks, voice shaking.

“Come on, you know exactly what I’m talking about” the voice says, and he gives a little gasp as thick fingers push into his hip bones, angling down this time. “First time I smelled you in the hospital you weren’t anything special. A little unbalanced, depressed, but what fucking teenager isn’t nowadays? But then last month you came in and you reeked,” he tells him, the last word drawing out in Sollux’s ears. “Your despair was so strong I could smell you from three floors up, felt your tears sitting in the back of your throat like parsley on the goddamn plate.” A hand slides up from Sollux’s pocket and under his hoodie. He grips at the wrist, but he can’t stop the muddy hand from pushing at his stomach. “The smallest nudge and you go from zero to infinity in no time flat. Rage, creativity, depression, horney. I can string you out with the amount of energy it takes for me to piss.”

The fingers on his stomach start moving, soothing in a way. They make Sollux shiver even more.

“Th-tho what. You one of the nurtheth gone rogue?” he asks. 

“My names, Karkat,” the voice says behind him. “And you’re not even close.”

Sollux lets out a gasp as he is shoved back to the muddy ground, jerked over, and straddled. His hands are left free, but Karkat is a heavy weight on his waist. He pushes at him, punches, but Karkat doesn’t even flinch.

“You done?” he asks when Sollux collapses back panting. He doesn’t respond. “Good, because I don’t have a fuck ton of time to chat with you.”

“Goody,” Sollux wheezes.

The slap to his face is harsh. Pain blooms and he gasps. “Should hit you again just for the taste,” Karkat murmurs, and the fingernails that trace Sollux’s cheek are sharp. They slide up and curl into his hair. With a harsh jerk Sollux finds himself looking upwards.

“What are you,” slips out of him. Somehow he knows this thing is smirking. 

“I’m what put your brother in a coma.”

Sollux’s heart freezes.

“Well, not the exact one, that was actually my brother’s handy work.” His voice is filled with disdain. “Had a deal with your brother's roommate. Apparently, something went a little south, because your brother’s in the hospital, and Kankri’s spitting mad now that he’s stuck back downstairs. Prick was driving me up a god damn wall, so I decided to slip out and find a snack.” Karkat leans down. “Who knew following my brother’s fuckups would lead me to a banquet.”

_Deal? Downstairs?_ “What?”

“Come on, I know you’re smarter than that.” He jerks Sollux’s head, and it makes him cry out. “I can feel that little brain of yours working, you know exactly what I am. You may be a dumb ass, but you’ve got enough working brain cells left to figure it out.”

He’s already got an idea, one that makes so little sense, that even his racing thoughts aren’t wanting to put it together. “There’th no thuch thing as demonth,” Sollux finally says as the fingers in his hair tighten again. 

Karkat chuckles. “Ah, got a little non-believer here. Let me guess, you don’t believe in god either.”

Sollux shakes his head just a little. 

“Well, sorry to bust your fucking security bubble of atheism, but he is real, and so am I.” Karkat tugs at Sollux's hair to emphasize the point. “Though it’s beyond me if the old fuck is still sticking around this shit hole of a solar system.”

“Tho what do you want?” Sollux asks as the fingers in his hair start to rub at the stinging in his scalp. It confuses his nerves and sends his heart and stomach into strange knots. “You want my thoul, or thome shit?”

“More like some shit,” Karkat scoffs as he sits back on Sollux’s hips. “Souls are for those fuckers who want power fast. They’re like steroids or viagra. Just things used to try and prove you’ve got a bigger dick than the rest without any of the work.”

“Let me gueth, you’ve got a big ol’ dick, and you’ve done all the work yourthelf” Sollux snaps.

“Wanna find out?” Karkat asks, face right in front of Sollux’s. His hips shift in a way that isn’t quite horrible, and Sollux swallows down bile. Somewhere, birds are starting to chirp, and it doesn’t fit with what is happening.

Karkat backs off when Sollux doesn't respond. “Souls are too much of a hassle. All that red tape with the deals, looking for loopholes, making sure your human can’t wriggle out and you have to mind all your p’s and q’s. It's fucking moronic." 

“Tho why the hell are you here?” Sollux asks. He keeps his hands up near his chest and stomach, covering as much as he can. The mud is seeping into his hoodie, chilling him.

“I may not need souls, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need some other bullshit from you humans.” He leans down to smell over Sollux again. “See, I’ve been nibbling on you for weeks, but now I want a bite. You just kept pushing and pushing with all these fucked up emotions of yours. High, low, high, low, plateaus in between, and top it off with all the crying and masturbating you do alone in that shit hole of a room, and you’re a one stop Las Vegas style buffet.”

Sollux grips his fingers together. “You’ve been in my room?”

“So many times,” Karkat replies, and he drags his fingers through Sollux’s hair. “Ever since that brother of yours said fuck the afterlife and you started throwing those little white pills down the drain.”

Sollux stares as his heart starts to pound. Fuck the afterlife? “Wh-what about Mituna?” 

Karkat gives a laugh. “Holy shit that hope,” he says with a groan. “There it is, I thought I had sucked the last of that out of you.”

He ignores him. “What did you mean?” Sollux isn’t even scared now. He pushes himself up on his elbows. “What do you mean he thaid ‘fuck the afterlife’?”

Karkat grins. “Curious now? It's like flipping a good damn switch with you.” 

“What’th going on with my brother,” Sollux bites out. The hands are back in his hair, forcing Sollux’s head back far enough that he can’t see Karkat. His arms shake to keep him from falling back and snapping his neck.

“You really are a fucking idiot,” Karkat says. “Making demands when I could tear out your throat. You’re more brain dead than your brother.” A warm tongue traces up his throat.

Sollux gasps, his fingers dig into the mud, and he squeezes his eyes shut. He knows about Mituna. He needs to know what he knows. “Please,” he grits out. “I-I’ll fucking let you feed or whatever, jutht tell me what’th going on with Mituna.”

The tongue stops on the underside of his chin, and then it disappears. “Those seem like fair terms.” Karkat’s voice is a purr.

Sollux’s eyes snap open. “W-wait, I-”

“Your brother is stuck in limbo. Clings to life and refuses to pass along into death, dumb fuck that he is. I can't say that I blame him. That reaper of his is a fucking bitch. I wouldn't want to go with her either. Can’t say she’s not trying though. She keeps tugging and tugging, but that guy is hanging on tight.” Karkat shifts on top of him, eyes flashing around the clearing. “He’s all wrapped up in that skull of his, trying to get out, but if he keeps pushing, then his body’s going to blink out faster than a candle in a fucking windstorm.” Karkat shifts again, and Sollux feels him lower himself down. “Now, why don’t you just-”

“Wait!” Sollux’s head reels. What the hell is he about to do? What did he just agree to? Did...wait did he really agree to anything?

“You didn’t agree,” Sollux gasps, and Karkat pulls back.

“What?”

“You just thaid ‘Those theem like fair termth’, you didn’t agree to them, and neither did I.”

The eyes above him narrow. Sollux is startled to find that he can actually see some accents to Karkat’s face. He has shaggy black hair, and features that make Sollux think of the middle east, or India.

“Well aren’t you fucking thmart.” Karkat features twist into something ugly as he mimics the lisp. “Should just slit your throat here and now and savor your death. That would be a fun flavor to try with you.” Karkat’s hand goes to wrap around Sollux’s throat and pushes him down into the mud.

“Wait!” Sollux croaks, hands coming to grab Karkat’s wrist. The fingers loosen. Sollux continues. “How about we make a deal? a real deal,” Sollux says. “No thoulth, no red tape, you jutht give me what I want, and I give you what you want. Then we both go on our own theperate wayth and never have to thee each other again.”

Karkat’s hand loosens. “I’m listening,” he says. Sollux can just barely see the curiosity on his face.

Sollux licks his lips and tastes dirt. “You wake up my brother, and you get to feed off of me ath much ath you want.”

Karkat blinks down at him, and then he laughs.

“What?” Sollux asks, suddenly afraid that he’s fucked up royally. 

“I can’t heal your brother,” Karkat laughs at him, body jerking above his as the chuckles roll through him. 

“T-then no deal.” 

Karkat’s laughter quickly dies. “I didn’t say I couldn’t help him,” Karkat says. 

Sollux swallows as he leans down again.

“I can give you a means to waking up your brother, but I can’t do shit. I’m not a healer, I’m a manipulator. You want a healer? Go drag Gamzee away from his new child bride, not that he’d be much help, what with how blissed out he is right now.” Karkat gives a little ‘humph’ and a murmured ‘dumb ass’ before leaning down over Sollux. “I feed off of emotion, so the most I could do would be drive you to slit your wrists in front of dear old dad and drink the blood while laughing. I mean, you’re already so close to doing it. All you need is to hear a flatline”

The images and implications makes Sollux’s stomach churn. “Tho you can wake Mituna up?” he asks, trying not to think about what Karkat is saying he can do.

“I can give you a _means_ to wake him up,” Karkat tells him.

Sollux thinks on that. He licks his lips and tastes mud again. He turns and spits. “Okay,” he says as his brain whirls. “Okay. Give me until tomorrow night, and I’ll have a deal for you,” Sollux says.

Karkat gives him a sour look. “I thought you said no red tape.” 

“Hey, I’m not going to leave anything to chance, are you?” he asks. “I already got you with the latht one didn’t I?” 

Karkat looks thoughtful for a moment, his thick eyebrows knitted above his red eyes. “Yeah, okay.” He stands in one fluid motion that is anything but human. “You have until tonight.”

Relief runs through Sollux and he nods. If this is real, if he’s not on some sort of caffeine high or knocked out at the bottom of this hill, then he’ll be able to get Mituna back. It makes something inside him warm up, and he shivers. 

Karkat gives a long sniff to the air and sigh. “But, until then.”

Sollux looks up to find Karkat swooping down. He lets out a squawk as hands grab at his face and a hot mouth finds his. He pulls at the hands as hard as he can, but nothing comes close to Karkat’s strength. He tastes mud on Karkat’s lips and feels something being sucked from him, pulled. Karkat comes off of him with a groan and Sollux gasps to try and fill himself back up.

“You didn’t say I couldn’t feed on you tonight, you stupid fuck.” 

The last word barely registers in Sollux’s ears before he realizes Karkat is gone.

“See you tonight,” is whispered behind him. Ice shoots up his spine.

Around him the woods are barely starting to lighten, the birds in the trees chirping like his world didn’t almost just end. Sollux sits still for a short time longer before his ass feels numb and he is shivering hard. On weak knees he gets up and staggers forwards. He feels empty, drained, with nothing but a tired ache in his chest and bones.

“Fuck school,” he murmurs as he climbs the hill back to the path. _Fuck everything, really._

He doesn’t say anything to his dad when he walks inside, even if he tries to get him to. Sollux just walks past him, ghost like, up the stairs. He’s swinging down hard, and he doesn’t try to stop it. Instead he uses it, lets the numbness spread through him as he pulls his clothing off in the bathroom, and drops the mud ruined cloth in the sink. He climbs under a cold shower spray, wraps his arms around his knees, and lets the water fall.

Mud swirls in dirty patterns over the bottom of the shower as Sollux picks at his thumb. He is a little surprised when bright red starts to mix with the brown, bubbling up from the chunk he's removed from his cuticle.

He watches it spin around, making circles on the shower floor that cause him to shiver in the warming water.

“Mituna,” he says brokenly into the spray before the tears come. He doesn’t get out until the water goes as cold as the pit in his stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Always check for additional warnings.

Sollux’s computer code looks like nonsense as he types, but at the same time it makes perfect sense. This is going to be the best prank yet, the best virus ever. 

“Move the hyphen,” Mituna tells him over his shoulder. Sollux notices his mistake, and with a mouse click sticks it next to a string of numbers.

“Almost done with this piece of shit,” Sollux replies with a grin, his words ringing true as he speaks. “Just needs to-”

The hands that grip his shoulders make him jump. “Mituna?” he asks as he looks over at his brother. Mituna’s eyes are wide, the brown irises reflecting the light of the computer. His mouth is moving, but Sollux can’t hear him. “Mituna, hey, what’s wrong?” His mouth still doesn’t make a sound. “Hey, stop fucking around, say something. You're freaking m-”

Dial up noises spring from Mituna’s lips, and fear shoots up Sollux’s spine as he falls back. Mituna's voice comes through in snippets, ones that never quite match with how his mouth is moving. “Do…. Karka….can’t. Don’t…” The static takes over, loud and piercing as it screams into his ears. “She’s com……….take me aw…...have to fi..Cronus.” His hands are almost painful as they grip Sollux’s shoulders. “Secret kee.....….coming....knife…...find the…” It cuts out again and Sollux sees something behind his brother. For a moment, it looks like some sort of curved silhouette, and it is reaching for him.

“M-mituna,” Sollux stammers, voice wavering as the darkness starts to wrap around his brother. “Tuna! What is that? What's happening?” he grips at him as the thing starts to pull Mituna back. 

Mituna keeps talking, his own hands gripping at Sollux. “List...Rufioh…... Kankri’s …….. give it…” The thing tugs hard and Mituna is pulled back, his voice screaming. “ ….can’t let…..voice ….….ca-” The dark thing rips Mituna from Sollux’s hands, swallows him, and Sollux is left standing in silent nothing. 

“Mituna!” he screams into the blackness. A new pressure settles on his shoulders. “Mituna?”

Those hands are not Mituna’s, the fingers are too short. Sollux is whipped around to find red eyes glowing at him. Karkat’s smile is wide as he throws Sollux down roughly and pushes himself on top of him. Karkat’s hands are powerful, his legs restrictive, and Sollux can’t do a damn thing against him as he is pushed down into the dark. Sollux scrambles against the restraining hands, and pants as Karkat’s nose comes down to press into the curve of his neck. 

“No,” Sollux begs as he feels Karkat’s nose trace upwards. His mouth ghosts over Sollux’s cheek, and he know that if he kisses him that he’s going to lose something. Karkat will take something right out of him. “No, do-”

The buzz of the doorbell cracks through Sollux’s skull as if it is an actual sledge hammer. With a sharp jolt, he throws himself upwards, his body wrapped in a tight cocoon of cloth as he pants. Around his body he has managed to wrap himself in a mixture of blankets, sheets, and even clothing that hadn’t found its way onto the floor. It is damp, uncomfortable, like being wrapped in wet towels. A pant leg tickles under his chin, and he jerks it away.

Downstairs, the buzz of the doorbell comes again, and Sollux looks over to the clock next to his bed. 3:57 blinks at him in red. He’s slept almost the entire day.

“I’m coming,” he calls, though the sound is nothing more than a croak. More tears than he will ever admit to had made their way down the drain during his shower last night. The little sounds he had let out haven’t left his throat unscathed. 

Getting up, he peels the sheets off of him, leaving him chilled as he stands naked and sweat stained next to his bed. He hadn’t bothered with clothing before heading to sleep, and in the light that makes its way around his blackout curtains, he looks for something to put on. He finds what he hopes is a fresh pair of boxers, a t-shirt, and some sweat shorts that he knows aren’t clean, but the damn doorbell won’t stop ringing, so fuck it if he smells like dirty teenage boy.

Sollux makes his way down the stairs in a state of lethargy. He stumbles a bit on the last few steps, feet almost going out from under him. The banister creaks when he grabs it for support. “Fuck,” he pants as he rights himself, his heart already dropping back to an even tempo. The doorbell comes again, and he heads into the entryway. With languid movements, Sollux gets the locks opened, turns the knob, and pulls it back to find Terezi reaching for the doorbell, cane in hand.

“Do it again and I’ll thteal your cane,” Sollux grumbles. 

“Do that and I’ll keep pushing,” Terezi replies, though she drops her hand. Her cane makes a click as it meets the concrete of the stoop. She stands in her usual get-up of jeans and a t-shirt, her jacket unzipped and open. Her shoulder length red hair is somewhat frizzy in the cool breeze that blows past her, and Sollux absently notes that the acne on her cheek has cleared up. He scratches at a few of the bumps hiding in his dark hairline.

“Where were you today?” she finally asks. “You missed our math test.”

“Thick,” Sollux replies as he leans against the doorway and closes his eyes. He doesn’t have to worry about bullshit like eye contact with Terezi. To her, his face is nothing but a giant blurb of pale color and shadows. Probably not even that much color. 

“I’m calling bullshit on that, though you do sound like hell,” she points out as she swings her backpack off her shoulder. Sollux watches her kneel down, her head staying pointed towards him as her hands go ruffling through the different folders, all with a tab sticking out of different places. With nimble fingers, she quickly finds the one she is looking for, and pulls out a grey file. “I told Ms. Paint I’d bring you your homework,” she tells him as she holds out the folder. Sollux takes it, because what the fuck else is he going to do. “Also told her about Mitnua’s episode yesterday. I thought it was why you didn’t show." The last part comes out a little softer. There is a beat of silence before she continues speaking. "She told me to let you know you can take a makeup quiz Thursday, so you’ve got tomorrow to study.” She zips her bag back up and stands.

“Yeah, thankth,” he grumbles. “Anything else?” Sollux just wants to go back upstairs and stare at the ceiling. No sleeping though, something about sleep makes him feel uncomfortable.

“Why don’t you tell me why your aura reeks,” Terezi quips as she waves her hand in front her nose. “You don’t smell much like apple berry today. More like, well…” Terezi pauses, thinking of what to say, “Something between rotten fruit and stale air.” 

“How are those two thingth even remotely thimilar? And if you’re going to thtart thpouting nonthenthe then I-”

Her hand comes up and grabs his cheeks. This isn’t the first time Terezi has done sudden physical contact, but it startles Sollux enough that he freezes as she leans up and takes a deep whiff next to his neck. His dream zips through his head, and he quickly jerks away.

“What the hell?” he snaps as he takes a stumbling step back.

“What happened to you?” she asks, head cocked slightly to the side as she rubs her hand on her pants. “I’m not kidding, Sollux. You’re off, really off, and not just ‘no medication’ off.” Her voice is full of concern as she takes a step towards him, cane sweeping in front of her and gliding over his toes.

“I’m wearing dirty pantth,” Sollux snaps as he pulls back as she tries to touch him again. He hates it when she does this bull shit. Smelling auras, what kind of idiot does she take him for? “There ith nothing wrong with my ‘aura’ or whatever other bullshit you’re going to thay,” he tells he as her mouth opens and then closes.

“You know I’m just worried about you,” she tells him after a few minutes of silence. Her voice is soft, but stern, and she does not shrink in the doorway. She stands up straight with both hands on her cane, face forward and red glasses backlit. The cat-eye like points glow with the sun behind her, and it reminds Sollux of a nightmare that makes his knees want to knock. “Something is going on here, Sollux. You don’t smell right, the forums are on fire, and Latula keeps have dreams about Mituna.”

“What, she mith hith dick?” Sollux scoffs. It gains him a cane to the shins.

“He’s been trying to tell her things.” She sounds annoyed, angry. It gets his attention. “He’s grabbing at her, babbling, and all she can ever make out is something about a knife and names. ‘Cronus’, ‘Sollux’, ‘Rufioh’, ‘Meulin’,” she rattles off a few more, but Sollux isn’t quite listening. Rufioh, he’s heard that name. 

She smacks Sollux’s leg with her cane. He jumps. “What’s wrong?” she questions with her head cocked.

Sollux shakes his head. “Nothing,” he tells her. “Jutht really fucking tired.” His heart is hammering against his chest. 

“Did you know any of those names?” Terezi asks.

“Of courthe I did,” Sollux snaps back. “Cronuth ith the prick that put Mituna in the hothpital.”

“I meant the others. Tavros, Kankri, Karkat, Ruf-” she pauses a second after Sollux feels his heart jump. Kankri? He’s heard that one too, and Karkat...that’s...

“Who’s Karkat?” she asks him as Sollux grits his teeth together. God damn her fucking perceptiveness. She could feel a fly land on a cat's whisker if she sat in the same room.

“Justht, fuck off TZ.” He goes to shut the door, but her cane stops him. 

“What’s going on, Sollux?” Her voice is almost cold. The crack in the door frames her face, especially her scowl. She is staring past him into the house, and he can see her nose twitch.

“Go talk to your thpirit board,” he says before he kicks her cane out of the door frame, shuts the wood in her face, and turns away. 

“I just want to help!” comes through the door. “Sollux, come on, who’s Karkat?”

Sollux walks away from the door, goes upstairs, and shoves headphones on as the doorbell starts back up. Glitch Mob filters into his ears as he sits himself down at the ruins of his desk and drops his head into his crossed arms. The buzzing of the doorbell mixes in with the music, and it isn’t long until he can’t tell if Terezi is still there or not. 

His long fingers spin around a small screw that had been knocked out of his computer and ended up on the scratched and dented wood of his desk. Fuck Terezi and her bullshit, what did she know? It had just been a bad dream, right? He had just knocked his head against something down there in the mud, rattled his brains around. Shifting, he feels a fine pain in his hip. Great, just great. Looks like he got hurt last night too.

Heaving a sigh, Sollux pulls his pants back to see the damage, and blanches. There are four distinct marks against his hip, each one harboring a small red line. Standing, he throws off his headphones, rushes to the cracked floor length mirror in his room, and shoves his pants down. Just above the joints on both of his hips are four evenly spaced bruises. With shaking hands, he puts his fingers over the four marks and remembers the pressure of the digits that had been there. They had rubbed circles into his flesh, bit into it, marked him. 

“Fuck.” His voice comes out hollow as his hands fall. That was supposed to be a bad dream, nothing more, just him fucked up without his meds. But he has marks, and if he has marks then…

With a jerk, he throws himself into his chair and pulls out an old yellow paper pad. The first few pages are covered in old coding notes, which he quickly tears off. He picks up a pen, stares at the rumpled yellow sheets, and swallows hard.

“Gotta get thith right,” he says as he stares at the lines. He starts to scribble.

\----  
Simon doesn’t come home, instead he just leaves a message saying that he has to work late and that he’s sorry. He relays that he really did want to try and be home, but for once his employers are having him stay late against his will. Sollux doesn’t believe a word of it, even if part of him really wants to. 

He sits in the kitchen downstairs, wearing a cleaner pair of sweatpants, and a sweatshirt. It’s not cold enough for his dad to kick on the heater, but it sure as hell isn’t warm anymore. The drink he sips on is more honey water tinged with vanilla bean than vanilla tea tinged with honey. His throat still feels sore, and while he would prefer something with caffeine, the urge for something honey flavored and sweet has overridden the need. At least, for now. He's so drained, and staying awake even for these few hours has been exhausting. If Karkat doesn't show soon, he's just going to say fuck all, chalk it up to a caffeine dream, and go sleep until he feels human again.

His eyes look up at the clock. It’s past nine. What does ‘night’ mean to this guy? The sun is fully down, most of the houses are dark in the neighborhood, and here he is sitting in his kitchen waiting for a demon. The clock continues the click, and Sollux takes another sip before pushing his cup away and laying his head in his arms. He’s shaking, not hard, but just enough that he can hear the cup rattling on the slightly off kilter table.

He and Mituna had taken out one of the table legs once, Sollux chasing him around the house. Socks and linoleum had not mixed, and the two had slid, fell, and hit the table leg full on. Their father had fixed it, but it had always been a little shorter than the others, making the table wobble at times. The memory makes him smile a little, and for a moment, he stops shaking. He reaches for his tea, but finds nothing there.

There is the sound of a sip and a swallow. “Do you even have tastebuds? I feel like an entire garden just assaulted my tongue with the amount of pollen in this shit.” The words have an audible wince in them. Sollux jerks out of his chair. Sock and linoleum again don’t mix, and he starts to go down before strong hands wrap tight around his waist.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Karkat murmurs against his neck as he holds Sollux up. Karkat takes in a deep breath against Sollux’s skin, and it makes Sollux squirm. “Nostalgia to scared shitless in seconds flat. Don’t think even I could have come up with that combination on my own. You’re like a grab bag filled with anything from black licorice to peanut butter cups. No matter what I pull out of you it makes my mouth water.” 

“You actually like black licorice?” Is what Sollux’s brain decides to process.

“With salt and all,” Karkat chuckles as he licks his lips. He goes to try and push his nose back to Sollux’s throat, and Sollux quickly pulls away. It takes him a moment to right himself, his hands gripping tight to the table as his heart tries to bruise his sternum. He doesn't feel so sleepy anymore, too much adrenaline. It makes his body ache.

“What took you tho long?” Sollux asks, trying to be snide even though he just wants to cower. So much of him is yelling at him to run, hide, grab a cross and scream quotes from the Exorcist. He turns to look at Karkat, and the guy he finds in his kitchen doesn’t look like he should be eliciting the fearful response he is giving. Karkat is wearing a frumpy looking sweater, old looking pants that seem to come up too high on his waist, dirty sneakers, and has a round face that makes him look younger than he had in the dark. Everything looks almost too big on him, and it makes Karkat seem smaller, less threatening. At least, to the eye he seems that way. His presence makes Sollux want to flee to his room and barricade it.

“I don’t remember you specifying a time,” Karkat scoffs back as he takes a seat at the table. He picks up Sollux’s tea, sips it with an almost questioning look on his face, and then shakes his head. “The hell did you do? Heat honey up in a fucking microwave?”

“It’th tea,” Sollux replies as he sits on the far side of the table. 

“That is not tea,” Karkat replies as he picks up the cup. “I know tea. Tea is bitter, aromatic, and wonderful with milk. This is fucking hot water poured over honeycomb and stirred with a rancid vanilla bean.” 

Despite the fact that Sollux’s heart is beating as quickly as a hummingbird’s wing, he still feels a moment of annoyance towards the demon at his table. “Are we going to argue about tea, or are we going to do thith?” He grabs the yellow notepad that had been sitting in front of his original seat, and pulls it to him.

“Go for it.” Karkat takes another sip of the ‘honey water’ as Sollux looks down at the list of things. “I’ve been looking forward to listening to you lisp off your list of listless demands all day.”

Sollux glares at Karkat, who grins back at him. He tears his eyes away from the white smile and looks back at his paper. “Okay,” he sighs as he tries to read his own handwriting. He had re-written this damn thing more times than he can count, almost finishing off his legal pad in the process. “Tho, jutht to be sure, you want to be able to feed off of me for waking up Mituna, right?”

“And all that feeding off you will entail,” Karkat responds as he takes another sip.

“Meaning…” Sollux asks. He wants to know Karkat’s stance, see if he can get around anything or if he has to change any of his own stipulations.

His voice is annoyed as he speaks, like Sollux should already know this.“Meaning that I will be able to elicit from you any emotional response I want, in any way I want, so that I can fully taste and feed off of your range of emotions.” 

Sollux licks his lips. He’s not sure how he feels about that, but if Karkat agrees to his terms, then Karkat won’t be able do that much to him...he hopes. “Alright,” Sollux replies before looking down at his paper. He wants his tea back, because right now his throat feels like sandpaper rubbing together when he tries to swallow. “Firtht off, you have to provide me the meanth, or whatever it ith that you can do, to bring Mituna back from hith coma. I don’t mean jutht wake him up for a little while. I want him fully consciouth. No more coma, no more brain damage. He’ll be up and walking around, thpeaking, and all that jath.”

“I can help you get something to do that,” Karkat says with a nod. “I can not, however, promise that your brothers brain won’t be more oatmeal than actual brain matter.”

“No deal then,” Sollux says quickly.

Karkat shrugs. “Hey, fine by me. I can just feed off of you whenever I want, maybe kill you, scrub your brain clean and have you roam around more zombified than your brother. I can, however, promise you this.” He puts the cup down as he leans forwards, arms settling onto the table. “Mituna will wake up, he will be able to talk and walk, and he’ll live. No vegetative state, no wheelchair. The guy who’s going to provide me with what you need to fix him can do all that, but if there is anything fucked with his head, his actual mind, then he can’t do shit. Brain damage isn’t really the guy’s forte, he can fix some of it, but not all of it. But be assured, you’ll have your lovely big brother back, he’ll just have a few holes in his head.” 

Sollux chews on his tongue. “Ith there anyone who could fill in thothe holeth?”

Karkat gives a shrug. “Maybe,” he says with a sharp grin. “But that would be a deal for another time.”

The words make Sollux’s body shudder. He doesn’t want to do this more than once, really he doesn’t. “Okay, tho one feeding for whatever-”

“One feeding a month,” Karkat interrupts.

“What?” His voice comes out almost as a squawk. 

“You fucking heard me,” Karkat snaps at him. “One feeding a month. In return, I help you do upkeep on your brother. If I figure out a way to fix his head, then we’ll get it done. He gets in another accident with his buttersquash brain, you have buyers insurance for one easy payment a month for the rest of your life. Or his, depends on who goes first.” 

“And if I say just once?” Sollux asks through gritted teeth. 

“You get a woken up brother and a knock a week later. Because, really, there isn’t a deal you could make that would keep me away from you.” His voice feels prickly as he speaks. “You’re just too delicious.” Karkat takes a big inhale, and Sollux feels something around him twitch. “It would be like putting someone on life support. You’ll stave off the inevitable for a bit, but it won’t be long until you’re listening to a flatline.”

“Fine,” he bites out. “But only if you follow the retht of my thtipulationth.”

“Don’t say that word again,” Karkat chides. “You thound like an idiot.” The fake lisp makes Sollux’s teeth ache as he grits them tight.

“My thtiplationth are,” Sollux begins, eyes focussed on Karkat as he says the word. “You can not injure, kill, or maim anyone I know, both phythically and mentally, including myself. Thith includes people I have only met in pathing, and anyone they know directly, even if I don’t.”

“I’ll do up to the people in passing,” Karkat says as he takes another sip. “You can’t fucking expect me to pay that much attention to people that aren’t even around you.”

“Fine, up to people in pathing,” Sollux replies. He had figured he would only get friends and family, but this is more than he was hoping for.

“And the not hurting you thing isn’t going to fly,” Karkat adds as Sollux flips the page and writes down the agreement. His head immediately snaps up as he goes to talk, but Karkat beats him to it. “To elicit certain responses, I’m going to hurt you, sometimes to the point you’re bloody and begging me on the floor. We can keep the no killing thing in there for you if it makes you feel better, but know that I am going to beat you within an inch of your life and hold you on the brink of oblivion to get everything I want from you.” 

He takes another sip of the cup like he had just told him the weather. When he finishes his sip, he goes to speak again, and his tone drops into something that makes Sollux’s stomach coil. “But that also means I’m going to show you pleasure like nothing you’d find on this fucking rock.” 

Sollux takes a trembling breath as his body fights with itself on what it should be feeling more of. Fear for what’s going to happen to him, or excitement from those words. His brain is banking more on fear, but the hungry look Karkat gives him, along with the way he licks his lips, well it makes the rest of his body do a few other things.

“Fine,” Sollux whispers as he scribbles it down and looks away from Karkat. “But you have to put me back together afterwardth.” He pauses. “Wait...will you be able to put me back together?”

Karkat gives a nod. “That’s going to be the funnest part,” he says with a grin.

“The motht fun,” Sollux corrects him automatically. Mituna would say funnest too, just to spite him, and rile him up.

Karkat’s tone starts out easy before harboring disdain. “I’m going to enjoy biting out your tongue and feeling it wriggle it’s way down my throat. Maybe it’ll actually do something worthwhile in there, like shut up.”

Sollux blanches. He wiggles his tongue in his mouth a bit as he goes on to his next requirements. “When you’re not feeding on me, you can’t forthe me to do thomething with your mental bullshit.”

“Like that thing I mentioned yesterday involving you, your dad, and a razor?” Karkat asks.

Sollux gives a nod. “Yeah, like that. Thame goes for anyone else up to people I know in pathing.”

Karkat thinks on that a moment. “Alright,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to toy with you. Won’t make you do anything physically, but fuck if I’m just going to leave you alone. Get ready for paranoia and voices because we are going to get the title of schizophrenic tacked onto that bipolar of yours.”

Sollux’s stomach churns. Shit, he has enough crap going on in his head already. “You have to at leatht leave me alone when I’m at thchool and in public,” he points out. “Anyone theeth me talking to mythelf and they are going to put me on tho much medication I won’t be able to feel anything but thtoned for the retht of my life.”

“Fuck, you’re not fun,” Karkat pouts as he sips at the dwindling cup of tea. “But you do have a point. I knew you had to have some brain cells left in that nut house you call a skull. Guess it just took a little coaxing to get them to actually run.”

Sollux ignores him and reads off the next thing. “You can’t cauthe any indirect accidentth to anyone I know, nor can you cauthe any damage to pothessionth or land that my friends, family, aquaintentheth, and people I know in pathing may own.”

“Damn, I had wanted to put your head through the bathroom wall. Would have been fun to really give you a reason to cry in there.” The humor in his voice is bland and uncaring. “I’ll take it, but only under the stipulation that if I break something while feeding it is allowed. I won’t actively go around breaking your shit, but if we get rough, well then I give no promises. And, I mean, you’ve already done more damage to your room than I would anyways.” He gives a mean, toothy grin that Sollux has to look away from.

“If you break any of thethe rules the dealth off,” Sollux reads finally. “Mituna thtayth awake, you leave me alone, and you get the fuck out of dodge. Preferably hell or wherever the fuck you’re from, but I doubted you’d go for that.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” Karkat gulps the last of the tea down and set the cup on the table. “So, to recap, because I don’t feel like listening to you whistle through your teeth for the next few minutes; I get to feed off of you once a month, for a whole night, to my heart's desire. I can’t kill you, but I can beat you, fuck you, and do all manner of things to you to make sure you put out what I need.” He pauses for a moment just to lick his lips in a lewd manner that makes Sollux want to shrink into his chair. “During this time I can cause property damage, though not any other time to you or anyone else living, and I can’t cause physical or mental damage to anyone you are related to, friends with, or known just in passing. That about sum up all of the chicken scratch you have sprawled on that paper?”

“And,” Sollux asks as he waits for the rest of it.

Karkat heaves an exasperated sigh. “On top of that, if I do fuck up and do any of these things, you and Mituna get off scot free, and I have to go look for some other off kilter, caffeine addicted adrenaline junky to feed off of.” 

“You can’t hurt anyone elthe or make them hurt themthelveth if it breakth either.” His voice is stern when he says it, because this is important damn it.

Karkat sighs. “Okay, fine, up to those in passing again. Anything else?”

“Um…” Sollux’s head whirls for a moment. “I get thome thay in when you show up.” 

Karkat nods. “Yeah, sure. But you can only turn me away three times at random before I get to drag you somewhere and gorge on you. Try and do it four, then the deals off and your ass is mine and Mituna gets to see what’s on the otherside.”

The idea makes Sollux shiver. “I’ll make sure we have a planned meeting before that happenth,” he tells him.

“Alright, sounds good, we fucking done here? Or am I going to get the pleasure of feeling my ears bleed while I listen to you babble all night?” He’s leaning forwards on the table, eyes trained to Sollux like laser pointers.

“Yeah,” he says with a small nod. “That’th it.”

The grin he receives gets his heart to jump. Karkat gets up languidly and starts to come around the table, cup in hand. “Then I guess we’d better seal this deal, huh?” 

Sollux holds out the pen with a shaking hand as Karkat comes towards him, but the demon doesn’t seem to notice it. “Wh-what are you doing?” he asks as Karkat comes right up to him. The chair jerks back, and Sollux doesn’t see Karkat’s hands anywhere near it. He clutches at the wooden seat as Karkat swings a leg over his own, straddles him, and sits.

“Demons have another way of sealing deals,” he tells Sollux. “Gotta drink my spit if you’re going to make this a legitimate contract on both sides.”

Sollux wants to say something to that. Maybe ‘That’s absurd’ or ‘Fuck that.’ Instead he says something else. “C-can’t you jutht thign?” 

Karkat chuckles. “I could, but this ways more binding, and I’m swallowing yours as well so it’ll burn like a bitch if I fuck up.” He shifts in Sollux’s lap as he says it, and it sends strange little waves through him. “Now, do you want it straight from the tap, or are you going to pussy out and take the backwash?” Karkat holds the cup out to him. 

Out of the two choices he knows exactly what he wants. Sollux takes the cup quickly and knocks it back. Barely anything gets into his mouth, but that’s what he was hoping for. The second his mouth comes off the cup, hands are waiting, and he is pull into one of the harshest kisses he has ever received. Karkat’s tongue plunges into his mouth, and it is warm, almost hot. His saliva wraps around Sollux’s tongue. Sollux shoves him and stands up, knocking the chair back as he stumbles away. He swallows reflexively, and the heat goes all the way down.

“The fuck?” he pants. 

Karkat is leaning against the table, hands gripping the sides as he gives something like a smile to Sollux, though it has a little too much snarl in it to be that.

“Didn’t say I was actually giving you a choice did I? After the deal we just made you’d think you’d be better at this.” He straightens and then lunges. Sollux’s flight instinct kicks in and he turns to run. Karkat is in front of him the second he looks in a new direction. Hands grab him by the upper thighs, yank upwards, and Sollux lets out a cry as he falls. It is cut off when his back hits a wall, and Karkat’s body pins him to it. 

He doesn’t get to try and take in air, instead he gets a mouth full of tongue. Sollux tries to pull back, but there is a wall behind his head now and he has nowhere to go. The hands that hold his legs shift, forcing him to wrap his legs around Karkat’s hips as he tries to find purchase on the wall with his hands.

Karkat finally pulls back, rivulets of saliva dripping from his and Sollux’s mouths. Sollux swallows again, and feels more heat make its way inside him.

“Y-you can’t hurt me,” he says. “Not until a feeding.”

“Did you say that?” Karkat asks in slight surprise. “I don’t think you said that.” He glances towards Sollux’s paper. “Nope, no note of you saying that, but then again I guess you were a little distracted. Oh well, too late now.”

Anger and fear wash through him. “You fucker,” he pants.

Karkat jolts him upwards, making him gasp in fear as his hands swing forwards and grip around Karkat’s shoulders. Karkat grins at Sollux as he stands holding him up, pressing him to the wall so that they are almost the same height. Sollux is still a little higher, but it doesn’t seem to bother Karkat.

“At some point, I will be ‘your’ fucker, but not tonight honey boy.” His voice is almost a growl, his eyes are also glowing, and Sollux can feel Karkat’s heat through his clothes. “Tonight I want a taste of you that isn’t tinged in mud and artificial flavoring.”

The next kiss is harsh. Sollux tries to keep his mouth shut, but when teeth come into play he quickly opens. Damn it, fucking damn it he screwed up. He had gotten everyone else off the hook but hadn’t made it so he couldn’t be touched outside of feedings. Fucking hell he’s an idiot, an idiot with a demon’s tongue down his throat and hands on his ass. They are rough hands, squeezing his flesh and making him gasp around the tongue in his mouth. Karkat grinds against his cock, and Sollux finds his body eliciting a response within the mayhem of his brain. 

Karkat pulls back and shoves his nose into Sollux’s shoulder before taking a deep inhale of breath. “Yeeeees,” he groans obscenely before licking a line up Sollux’s neck. It doesn’t stop until it reaches his ear, and he feels something akin to steam on his flesh. Karkat takes the lobe between sharp teeth and sucks, worrying the skin between the points and makes Sollux gasp. Sollux’s cock twitches to life, and Karkat rolls his hips against Sollux’s.

“It’s better than I thought,” Karkat groans as he rocks his hips in a steady rhythm. Sollux squeezes his hands behind Karkat’s head, his fingers digging into the demon’s hair and neck. “Just a little more, I want just a little more,” Karkat murmurs. Sollux feels confusion whip up, because Karkat doesn’t seem to be talking to him. 

“Ah!” The sound comes out sharp as Karkat pulls back and pushes up at the same time. Sollux flails.

“Calm down you fucking wriggler,” Karkat says as he gets Sollux’s thighs over his shoulders. “You’ll like this, I know you will, because that fucking porn you watch has plenty of this stupid wall pinning crap in it.” 

Sollux’s fists tighten in Karkat’s hair as the demon’s hands slide around his thighs, over his hips, and to his crotch. It takes very little effort to get the sweat pants down, even less for Karkat to fish Sollux’s cock out of his boxers. He watches with a horrified fascination at what is happening as Karkat licks his lips so close to his dick. His fingers clench in the thick hair on Karkat’s scalp when steamy breath ghosts over his cock. 

Karkat nuzzles his dick, takes in a deep inhale, and lets it out as he looks up at him with his eyes barely opened. “So much better than when you jerk yourself in the shower,” he tells him. “So much fucking better getting it right off of you.” He doesn’t say anything else as his mouth slides down Sollux’s dick, and Sollux finds himself spouting off syllables that are nothing more than nonsense. The heat is intense and wet, like the hot water springs his family went to a few years back. It envelopes his cock fully, and the pleasure of it has him curling around Karkat’s head. Hands grip at his thighs, holding him in place while Karkat keeps Sollux’s back against the wall.

“F-fuck,” Sollux pants as his brain tries to orient what is happening. It fails spectacularly as the tongue in Karkat’s mouth starts making circles around his dick in impossible ways. His throat constricts, his head bobs, and Sollux finds himself unable to do much more than feel and cry out on particularly good sucks.

“K-karkat,” he pants out, though he doesn’t know if it’s to tell him to stop or beg him to do more like that. The response is a sudden halt and a sharp pain at the base of his dick. Sollux lets out a gasp before looking down. Karkat is looking up at him, his red eyes reminiscent of viscous lava. He has all of Sollux down his throat, pressed back into the muscle, and his teeth around his base. Sollux can just see the white points, barely pressing against the flesh as Karkat gives him a semblance of a smile. They move, just a little, and horror fills him the same time pleasure shoots from the head of his dick as Karkat swallows.

“Please, don’t,” he croaks. Oh god, what had he been thinking? How could he have been enjoying that? His worry and fear spikes when Karkat suctions his lips around Sollux’s cock, his teeth push down, and in one quick movement he pulls his mouth back. Sollux shouts before pain even touches him, which it never does. Karkat gives a laugh as Sollux peaks through his lashes to find that his hasn’t been flayed open by sharp teeth.

“So fucking easy,” Karkat say before he pulls away from the wall and shrugs off Sollux’s legs. He falls, lets out a cry, and is caught on the way down. “Aren’t you now, Thollux?” The question comes with a biting kiss that draws both blood and a moan before Karkat pulls back fully. “I’ll see you on Halloween, eight sharp,” Karkat tells him as Sollux pants hard from adrenaline and arousal. 

“H-halloween?” Sollux questions as his head spins.

“Yeah,” Karkat chuckles. “Seems fitting, right?”

“Sounds like a bad movie,” Sollux replies before he can think much.

Karkat’s next kiss is hard and deep before he speaks against Sollux’s mouth. “Watch your tongue, I like those ‘bad movies’. Rom-coms especially. I make up my own endings that end in a little more fire and brimstone.” He squeezes Sollux’s ass so hard he feels like it’ll bruise.

There is another kiss, and the second it ends Sollux’s feet hit the ground and he finds himself blinking into an empty kitchen. His glasses are smudged with oil from both his and Karkat’s face, giving the room an almost surreal look as he pants. He takes a few steps over the tile, eyes searching as his cock throbs painfully between his legs.

He sits in one of the kitchen chairs and drops his hand into his lap.

“If you lay a single finger on that fleshy little phallus of yours before thursday, I will tear it off slowly with my teeth and then fuck your ass with it while I fuck the hole.” Karkat’s voice is right in Sollux ear, and it sends him toppling from the chair. 

When he looks, there is no one in the kitchen.

“Not a problem,” he pants as he feels his cock lag. 

The sudden suck to his dick makes him cry out and he rolls. His hands go to cover himself as he his eyes search the room. All he gets is a laugh in his ear.

“Oh, I’m sure it won’t be.” The words are laced in sarcasm as ghostly hands squeeze Sollux’s ass. “Good think you’ve got a three day weekend coming,” Karkat says into his ear. “You’re going to need that extra time to remember what it’s like being whole.” Something twists in him, and Sollux gasps before the feeling of hands are gone.

On shaking hands and knees, he gets up, uses the table for leverage, and stands. He thinks he hears a laugh somewhere, but he can’t tell for sure.

\-----

Sleep is all he wants that night, and it is the last thing he gets. Karkat torments him with touches just before he starts to nod off. They can be soft, sharp, sensual, and they keep his heart rate up long into the night. When he does finally sleep, his dreams are nothing but running. Running, running, running, with no direction or landscape to look at. Just dark, with dial up noise and yelling in the background. Two red pinpricks always follow.

“Fuck,” he groans when the alarm clock goes off and he finds himself staring at the inside of his eyelids. He cracks them, and immediately jolts, scuttling backwards. There is nothing in the dark of his room. No eyes, no shadows, nothing. Just his dirty clothing and the stink of old energy drinks.

“You’re gonna be late,” is whispered in his ear, and he jerks off the bed. Whipping around he finds empty air, though he does feel fingers on his hips. This is going to be a fucking long day.

Karkat doesn’t follow him to school, and he’s at least thankful for that part of the deal. His first two periods are spent napping in the back of his classes. The news of Mituna’s flatline scare must have gone around, because no one wakes him. No one bothers him at all, really, at least not until third period math.

He collapses into a chair near the back just before the bell rings, his eyes slipping shut the second his butt hits the plastic.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on,” Terezi hisses next to him as Ms. Paint starts talking at the front of the class.

“Tired,” is all Sollux replies with.

“Is that why you smell like...like…” she goes quiet for a moment. “Sollux, you smell like you’re burnt.” 

Sollux’s eyes open, and his head turns quickly to Terezi. Her face is hard, her mouth carved into a frown as her eyes stare at him through her glasses. They look almost blackish behind the red frames, the green behind them being swallowed with the color. “The fuck are you talking about?” His voice is a harsh whisper as Ms. Paint draws something on the whiteboard. 

“You smell _burnt_ , Sollux,” she repeats. “The apple berry is there, but it is fucking _charcoal_.” 

Her words send shivers through him. One of his hands push into his hoodie pocket and press at the warm place in his stomach that hasn’t quite gone away from last night. “You’re jutht thmelling the cafeteria,” he mumbles as he turns forwards, eyes half closing as he looks forwards.

“That is not the cafeteria. What _happened_ ,” she repeats.

Sollux sits quietly.

“Sollux, I swear to Go-”

“Ms. Pyrope!”

They both jump as Ms. Paint’s voice snaps through the room. “Whatever you and Mr. Captor need to talk about, it can wait until passing period,” she tells them as people snicker around the room. “Now please, turn your ears this way and leave Sollux alone. He’s having a hard enough time without you distracting him.”

Sollux catches Terezi’s frown out of the corner of his eye as she turns to face the teacher. “Sorry Ms. Paint,” she murmurs just loud enough for the woman to hear. 

Under any other circumstances, Sollux would be thrilled for Terezi to get in trouble. Instead he just feels cold.

At the end of class, he is called to the front where Mr. Paint tells him about what he has missed, that she can’t let him have anymore time for his late assignments, and that she’ll need them all by next friday. He just nods, turns out of the room, and finds Terezi waiting. He quickly goes the other way, and the chase begins.

Playing hide and seek with Terezi is pretty much impossible. No matter where he hides between periods she finds him and speed chases him through the halls. He makes laps as she whacks people’s ankles to get through, stride never breaking. Sollux does his best to slip into his classes with the bell, forcing her to rush off to her own classes, her cane tapping angrily against lockers and tile as she goes.

He doesn’t beat her out of the school though. One of his other professors end up making him stay behind, yammering about how they want him to be able to graduate in the spring. He barely listens as the minutes tick by.

Sollux finds her sitting cross legged on the hood of Mituna’s car, the parking lot almost empty of people. He pauses for just a moment before walking straight for his car door. The second his foot falls reach her ears she is moving.

“Fuck off, Terezi,” he tells her as he pulls out his keys and goes to slide them into the door. Her cane is swift to smack them from his fingers and to the ground. “OW, what the hell is wrong with you?” he snaps at her.

“Cut the shit,” Terezi barks back. “What the fuck has been following you?” 

Sollux blinks. “What?” 

“That smell, it isn’t you,” she replies. “Just on you, I caught a whiff of it in your house yesterday. Then today you reek of it, but when you move quickly I can smell you, the real you, or at least the rotten you from yesterday.” She gives him a scowl. “There is something clinging to you, and if you say that you just stood in front of a barbeque last night I will put you right next to Mituna.”

Sollux blinks at her. Following him? There is a shift of shadow beneath the car, and he jumps. Terezi’s head snaps to the side as well, and she bares her teeth. “The fuck is it?” she asks Sollux as she pokes at the shadows. He expects something to happen, like her cane to snap in half, but nothing does.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sollux grumbles as he leans down to grab his keys. When he looks up from his bent over state, he freezes. Karkat is grinning at him under the car, eyes red and teeth bright white. Sollux blinks and he’s gone.

Terezi gives a deep sniff and her head turns side to side. “Damn it,” she murmurs before turning back to Sollux as he stands. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but stop it. Whatever that...thing was, it’s not good Sollux. Anything it’s promising you, don’t go for it.”

Sollux gives a scoffing sound as his heart beat jumps. “Come on, Terezi,” he says as he pushes past her to unlock his car. “You know I don’t believe in any of that shit.” Phantom hands wrap around his ankles, and he swallows hard as they squeeze. He lets out a yelp as her cane whacks at them. 

“The fuck was that for!” he yells, voice louder than he means it to be. He hears a faint snicker, and from the way Terezi’s head tilts, he thinks she might hear it to?

“It was on you again,” she murmurs. Sollux watches her mumble something as he feels a press against his back. What the fuck is Karkat doing? Sollux had told him he couldn’t fuck with him in public!

Terezi keeps grumbling, and she lifts her cane straight up, the tip perfectly parallel to the ground. 

“Wait,” he hears softly in his ear as the hands on his shoulders go tighter. “Son of a b-”

Terezi brings the cane down, and Sollux gasps as the sharp ring it lets out seems to go through him. Karkat’s touch dissipates immediately. He finds himself leaning against the car and gasping as Terezi stands perfectly still.

“What the hell did you just do?” he asks as she stares at the spot behind him.

“No, Sollux,” she says as she talks just past his head. “What the hell did _you_ do.”

Sollux doesn’t respond. Instead he wrenches the car door open, throws his bag inside, and sits down. He slams the door shut, turns the key, and pulls away. Terezi stands tall, still, and watches him go. He makes it maybe a block before Karkat decides it’s time to talk.

“I knew that bitch could ward, but holy shit that was more than I thought she could do.” He sounds angry, and it just adds to the anxiety that spikes through Sollux. He almost runs into a mailbox. 

“The fuck!” he cries as he comes to an abrupt halt on the side of the road. A car honks behind him as Karkat sits shotgun next to him. 

“What?” he snaps as he pulls down his seatbelt. “You’re out of public.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Sollux asks him as Karkat clicks the seat belt into place.

“Your driving is as bad as a sidewinder’s on a tilt-o-whirl,” Karkat replies, as if that should answer his question.

Sollux blinks at him. “Are you telling me I could kill you with a car crash?” Sollux asks, heart coming down from its high as Karkat settles in.

“Nah,” Karkat replies with a grin. “I’m just fucking with you.” There is a hissing sound, and Sollux glances down at the buckle. 

“What are you doing!” he shouts as steam comes off of it. The whole chunk of metal is melting. “You're damaging my shit outthide of a feeding,” he yells at him.

“No I’m not,” Karkat snickers. “I’m damaging Mituna’s shit.”

“Yeah, who’s my brother. Remember the deal?” Sollux bites out. “You can’t fuck with anyones thtuff!”

Karkat grins at him. “Doesn’t matter, I can still mess with his shit as much as I want right now,” Karkat points out. “Mituna’s as brain dead as a frog in a science lab. He may light up now and again, but with a reaper on his door, he’s dead. A machine doesn’t change that.”

“What does him being brain dead have to do with anything!” Sollux roars.

“Well that was your agreement,” Karkat snarls. “I can’t do anything to anyones property that you know that is _living_.”

Sollux opens his mouth to say something, to scream, and instead shuts it tight. Another loophole, another fucking loophole!

“Aw, don’t feel too bad Sollux,” Karkat chastises. “You gave making a deal a good try, but words aren’t your forte. Stick to binary. At least that’s a language you can do shit with. Can’t wait to see what your present to the faculty does on Friday.”

There is a sharp honk behind them, and Sollux jerks his head back to look. Cars have been passing him, but it’s caused a few others to be stuck in the lane he is half blocking. Out of the corner of his eye there is a flicker, and when he looks back Karkat is gone. Stepping on the gas, Sollux drives off to his home with the smell of hot metal burning his nose. When he tries to tug the seat belt out of its latch, he finds he can’t. It’s locked into place.

\----

Karkat doesn’t let up when he gets home, though he doesn’t do anything in plain sight. In the shower there are invisible hands on Sollux’s hips, things whisper at him from shadows, and he keeps seeing glimpses of red in reflective surfaces and when he walks around corners. 

“Sollux,” his dad asks as he looks into the stove for what has to be the tenth time. He could have sworn the bottom rack was glowing red. 

“Huh?” he asks as he sits across from his father. He had actually come home for dinner, a bag of chinese carry out in hand.

Simon sighs. “I said your mother will be back Saturday. It’s the soonest she can get back with what’s left of the deal she’s making.” 

Sollux pokes at his sweet and sour chicken, pops a bite into his mouth, and tastes Karkat’s tongue. 

“Something wrong with your food?” Simon asks, and Sollux realizes he’s frozen.

“Weird piece,” he replies as he bites down. The sweet and sour flavor fills his mouth immediately. Apparently the homeplace is not covered in the definition of ‘public’. If he ever has to do this again, Sollux is reading a god damn dictionary and a thesaurus before writing up his demands.

“Cooked all the way?” Simon asks him, concern in his voice.

“It’th fine, dad,” Sollux tells him around the mouthful.

“Don’t eat it if it tastes wrong,” is his response. “I don’t want you getting e-coli or something from undercooked meat.”

“Why not?” Sollux asks as something mean curls up inside him. “Then I could thtay with Mituna and thee you more than once a week.”

“That’s not funny,” Simon retorts, blue eyes flashing. They are the same cloudy color Sollux has. Mituna got their mom’s.

“Who said I was joking,” he grumbles before he takes another bite. 

His father opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and then lets out an angry sound. “I’m trying,” Simon finally whines. “Really, I am. But it’s so hard to see you and your mother go through this, and any time we try to talk to you, you lock yourself away.”

Sollux doesn’t respond, just keeps eating. It tastes like nothing.

Anger filters into Simon's voice. “See, like this. I breach the subject and you shut down,” he fumes. “I can’t just talk at you Sollux, I need you to talk back. I need you to communicate.” 

Sollux lifts his eyes. “Why?” he asks as he sets down his fork. “We never did before.” 

“Sollux, I-” he pauses. It’s true, they never had talked much, but Sollux is twisting it and he knows it. Speaking is not a strong trait for either of them, and using it like this is petty and cruel. 

“You want communication?” Sollux asks as the mean little seed blooms. “Okay, fine. I want you and mom to be able to look at me for more than two thecondth before looking at the ground. I want to know you’re actually in your bed at night inthtead of at the offithe or thome fucking hotel acroth the country. I want you to go into Mituna’th room and actually fucking _talk_ to him instead of thtaring at him for ten minuteth and leaving!”

Mr. Captor sits quietly as Sollux’s chest heaves. He realizes that he’s standing up, his chair pushed back. His hands press against the table, and the table's weight shifts.

“We’re pulling Mituna’s life support on Sunday,” is the rushed reply that comes, and Sollux’s stomach bottoms out. 

“What?” The world tilts like the table.

“The tests came back today,” Mr. Captor starts. “The damage is permanent. There is no healing happening, just more bleeding and clotting,” his father tells him. He looks at Sollux’s chest as he speaks. “The last flatline...Mituna was hemorrhaging. It won’t be the last time. The next one _will_ kill him.”

Sollux stares at his father. Everything in him whirls, flails, and falls as he watches the man before him crumple in on himself, his tall frame folding up like a telescope.

“We want your brother to go with dignity,” he laments, voice thick. There are tears on his cheeks. “We wa- Sollux.” 

Sollux can’t hear this. He stands, turns, and starts walking. “Sollux!” his father calls after him. “Please, son, we have no other op-”

“Fuck you!” he screams at him as he whirls on his heel. “You, you-” he can’t think of a word. There are too many things flying through his head.

“Sollux, please,” his father begs as he comes towards him. “He wants this. I-”

“How could you pothibly know what he wantth?” Sollux snaps. “He’th fucking brain dead, you jutht thaid it yourthelf. What, did he come to you wearing paper wingth in a halo and thay ‘Father, pleathe, pull my plug tho I may return to God!?’ I don’t fucking think tho!”

“Sollux, he-”

“No!” he screams at him. “You’re giving up. You are fucking giving up.”

“He wants this Sollux. You’re mother and I have both seen him. He-”

“Shut up!” he bellows as he turns and punches the door frame. There is a crunching noise, and he can’t tell it it is the wood or his own bone. 

“Sollux.” His father’s voice trembles in his ears as the cracking sound rings away.

“Don’t.” His voice wavers. “Don’t you dare. You’re willing to let him die, but gueth what, I’m not.” He turns and glares at him. “I’m going to get him back, and you’re going to have to live the retht of your life knowing you were going to kill him when you could have fucking thaved him.” The words come out like knife swipes, cutting through the air towards his father.

His father stares at him as he stands next to the table. Mr. Captor’s cheeks are wet, his eyes are red and puffy, and they can only hold Sollux’s gaze for a moment before they drop. “You can’t save your brother, Sollux,” he says softly. “No one can.”

“You’re wrong,” Sollux bites out as he watches his father seemingly shrink before him. “I already have.” He turns on his heel and heads back up towards his room. 

His father doesn’t follow him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I feel like going and huddling in a blanket now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna get graphic in here guys. You have been warned.

Sollux breaks his phone. 

He doesn’t mean to, but trying to pull out the battery proves too hard, and it just won’t stop lighting up. Latula’s name keeps appearing, Terezi’s, and in the end he sends it spiralling against a wall.

The rest follows it. Shoes, clothing, electronics, paper, his modem. All of it goes soaring, and his windows don’t survive. Glass shatters as his mouse flies out one window, and what remains of a family photo goes through the other. Tears stream down his face as he breaks anything he can get his hands on, destroys each and every item his traitorous parents bought for him. Even his glasses don’t make it through the night.

It isn’t until his possibly broken hand throbs with fire and he can’t see straight that he finally collapses onto his bed with a woosh of air. He lays there, fingers raking through his hair, and he doesn’t care that there could be glass in the sheets. He grabs the corner of his blanket, and fully clothed, begins to make himself a cocoon. 

His hand aches where it is wrapped against his chest, his brain pounds behind his eyes, and sobs wrack his body. Sollux waits for ridicule, hands, anything to distract him as he pours his soul out through his tear ducts. Nothing comes. Not his father, not Karkat, and even when he falls asleep, no one appears in his dreams.

He is alone.

\-----

The house phone rings almost non-stop the next day as word travels through his family. Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, they all want to know what is happening and why. Sollux listens to his father sob down the hall in his own room as he lets them go to voicemail. Accusing voices ring through the house, soft ones, angry ones. 

Sollux leaves his room only when needed. He takes sips out of the sink, uses the bathroom, and stays upstairs. Even when his stomach growls, he ignores it and goes straight back to his bed each time. 

“I’m sorry, I need to see him,” is all his father says when he leaves around 7pm. Sollux doesn’t respond as he lays with an aching bladder and empty body. It isn’t until he hears his father’s car pull away that he actually gets up to relieve himself. 

After taking a piss, Sollux looks at his hand. The swelling has gone down some since the morning, but it still looks nasty with the black all along the knuckles. It’s probably not broken, but it’s definitely bruised to shit. He runs it under warm water, cleaning out the the small cuts on it. 

“Happy Halloween.”

Sollux’s hand jerks upwards, hits the faucet, and he lets out a howl of pain. There is a laugh behind him, and he knows it is Karkat.

“You’re early,” he bites out as Karkat grins at him.

“By eastern standard time, I’m late,” Karkat parrys as he crosses his arms. 

Sollux drops it, there is no place for banter in his brain. He just wants this over with. All he has to do is get to sun up and then he can stop all this, wake Mituna up, and prove his father wrong. No point in putting it off. “Then fuck it, letth thtart.” 

Karkat raises a brow in clear confusion. “Really?”

“You just thaid it wath already time to thart on the eatht coatht. Tho yeah, letth fucking do thith.” He turns to head to his room, but fingers grab his hand, his bad hand, and he is jerked to a painful halt.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Karkat asks him.

“My room, where else?” It comes out a kind of whine as the fingers around his hand squeeze.

“It was a relative question,” Karkat responds as he pulls Sollux closer. “I knew exactly where you were going, but that’s not where we’re kicking this off.” When he’s close enough, Karkat wraps his arms around Sollux's thin frame. Both of his hands rub soothing circles against Sollux’s back. His brain screams that this is a bad thing, a very bad thing, but the exhaustion doesn’t give a damn. Sollux sinks forwards, because he knows he isn’t going anywhere. He let's his face drop into Karkat’s hair, and it smells like warm earth and sulfur springs. 

“Then where are we going?” Sollux mumbles. This isn’t so bad, maybe Karkat will let him stay like this a bit before tearing him apart. “You want to thoap me up or thomething first?” He had mentioned something about the shower once.

“I think I’ll save that for another time, maybe. Tonight, we’re going to my place,” Karkat replies as the circles stop and his hands clench tight around Sollux.

“What?” Sollux asks as his eyes fly open.

“Hold on unless you want to leave a limb behind,” Karkat chuckles into Sollux’s chest. 

Sollux feels like he’s falling despite there being something solid under his feet. The world around him goes wishy-washy, like dirty bathwater, and starts to run upwards. Sollux’s hands grab hard at Karkat’s sides as his stomach tries to go with the colors. Darkness rises up to take its place. Warm, moist darkness that fills his mouth when he tries to scream. Or that could be Karkat’s tongue, he can’t be sure because he can’t see anything. If it is, then Karkat pulls it out just before they stop, because Sollux’s teeth gnash together hard when they touch down. 

Karkat’s arms hold him up as he sags, breathing labored as his head swims. Without his glasses, the place they are in looks like nothing more than a blur. It’s all heat and stone, with red rivers that ooze in the distance, and what looks like scattered mountains. The most he can make out are the boulders around them and the tiny streams that run off to feed the larger one .

“Home again home again,” Karkat chuckles as he lifts Sollux up bridal style. He doesn’t even grunt while he does it. “Let me carry you over the threshold before we start this little honeymoon of ours. I got us the suite.”

“Joy,” Sollux chokes out as he clings to Karkat and looks over Karkat’s shoulder. His eyes dodge around, trying to figure out what he is seeing. Looking upwards, all Sollux can see is some sort of purple haze that hangs low near the tops of mountains. It makes him shudder. What’s going on? It’s so hot in here he can barely breathe. His head whacks against something, and he lets out a little cry of pain.

“Whoops, no wonder they go through sideways,” Karkat tells him as they pass through a door into what seems to be some sort of stone castle structure. The temperature drops, but Sollux’s heart rate doesn’t. They pass by things that make his skin crawl; paintings of what look like couples suffering unspeakable tortures, and what looks like hearts are set into alcoves. They glow and pump inside the walls, their light illuminating the hallway. His fuzzy eyesight makes it all the worse by letting his imagination do more with the images and thudding stones than it could ever do seeing them clearly. He can’t help but stare at them though, eyes jumping from one thing to the next as the light pulses around him. 

Sollux lets out a terrified squeak when they reach the top of a long, sweeping staircase. Above them seems to be a collage of hearts, all beating in unison with a low thudding that his own heart tries to match. The reddish light that emits from them brightens the room and then drops it into duskiness.

“What’s wrong? Don’t like my place?” Karkat asks with an annoyed grunt. Sollux realizes that he’s shaking. “Sorry it’s so above your grotesquely low standards, but you never said we had to do this shit in your room, and seeing as your bed is more of a trash dump than an actual sleeping area, I figured we’d come here instead. The glass could have been fun though.”

“B-but,” Sollux says as he tries to understand what he is seeing. There are cord like things coming out of the hearts, leading outside. Are these what make the rivers, or do they pull the rivers inside? 

“Well, if you didn’t want to see hell, you should have told me,” Karkat says gruffly. “Not my fucking fault you didn’t know where you wanted me to cull you alive.” 

“N-no, I don-”

“Too late,” Karkat says as he drops Sollux unceremoniously on the floor. Pain shoots up his spine and bruised hand as his body tries to take the shock of falling on hard rock. He lets out a gasp of pain as Karkat glares down at him. “See, I don’t know why you’re fucking complaining.” His annoyance is palpable as he walks into the room. The doors they had walked through shut fast, clipping Sollux’s hip as they go. “I could have just kept doing what I was doing. Fed off of you, watched you dip into insanity when Mituna finally lost his little game of tag with the reaper bitch, sucked you dry and fucked you as much as I wanted while you lay in an insanity ward pleading with the walls.” He steps away, and Sollux realizes that Karkat isn’t wearing the same thing as before. He’s shirtless, and without the sweater, he can see nothing but bold muscle beneath dark skin. He is broad, barrel chested for his size, and the pants he wears come up mid waist and are red with deep black lines. 

Sollux watches him walk over to what looks like a bed, maybe, the thing is huge. He can’t tell what it is for sure without his glasses, but he thinks there is a headboard. Karkat picks something up off of the red cloth, turns to Sollux, and is in front of him in less than a blink. This close, Sollux can see more definition to his arms and chest, his body is as cut as the rock around them. His face no longer looks soft and round, but almost boulder-like. 

Steam caresses his face as Karkat keeps talking. “But no, I didn’t,” he says, and Sollux cowers as he sees how red his eyes are. On his head, two horns have pushed out from the dark hair, and it makes his visage all the more horrific. “I decided to play your little fucked up human games and give you a shot to get something you wanted back. Hell, I’m even making deals on this side to make sure you get what you want, and what do you give me? Nothing but childish whining.” His words are a growl as he grips Sollux’s hair at the base of his neck and pulls. A gasp comes from Sollux as he grabs at the hands, feet flailing to get under him. 

“I bring you here, into my home,” Karkat continues as something cold and sharp pushes to Sollux’s belly. It travels upwards as Sollux stands on his toes, Karkat’s arm up as high as it can go and making him dangle by the handful of hair. “Promise you a night you won’t fucking forget, prepare my best rooms and toys for you, and this is how you repay me? Pissing yourself and whining instead of thanking me for saving your brother from the flat line.” The knife pushes against Sollux’s stomach, and he gasps as he feels it slice just a little. 

“I’m thorry,” Sollux gasps as tears well up in his eyes. He’s going to gut him, right here, right now. He’s going to slice his stomach open and leave him to die on warm stone all alone. 

“What was that?” Karkat asks as the knife goes still.

“I’m thorry,” Sollux says again. “Y-you’re right.” He scrambles for words, any words that might keep that knife out of his guts. “I’ve been horrible. You’re giving me my brother back, giving me optionth. T-thank you.” The words taste like hot tar on his tongue. The knife starts to move. “Pleathe,” he whispers as it moves upwards under his shirt. “I’m thorry.”

The knife moves with a flash and warm air carresses his chest. Karkat’s hand that holds him up lowers him, and Sollux's legs almost give out when his weight settles back onto them. 

“You’d better be,” Karkat says as the knife falls to the floor and Sollux is steadied by a hand on his side. “Now show me how thankful you are.” The hand at the back of Sollux’s head pulls him forwards, and the kiss he is met with is harsh, but not hard. Relief floods through him, and with shaking hands he grabs at Karkat’s shoulders, back bent to keep his mouth on Karkat’s level. 

He is pulled backwards towards the weird bed in the middle of the room, Karkat’s hands shoving at the torn cloth that was once Sollux’s shirt and hoody. Sollux helps him pull it off between kisses that go from harsh to sensual. Karkat’s hands follow the indents of his spine as he pulls him up onto the bed, mouth and tongue tracing his teeth. Sollux groans straight into Karkat’s mouth, his body shudders, and he moves to be above him. 

“That’s more like it,” Karkat pants when Sollux surprisingly finds himself straddling the smaller body below him. He can feel his heartbeat in his hurt hand as it presses against the soft comforter.

“Thank you,” is what Sollux responds with, his chest feeling lighter as he leans back down. “Thank you, I’m thorry,” he repeats as he kisses Karkat, mouth pushing along the demon's neck. It hurts him to say it, but Sollux mean it. Karkat’s right, isn’t he? He’s going to give Sollux so much, and all he has to do is share a bed with him for a night. That’s fair, this is all fair, it is right to give thanks and praise. 

Karkat’s mouth finds Sollux’s, and he opens eagerly. Karkat worries his bottom lip a bit, sucks on it, and then slips his tongue inside. Sollux opens to it, moans into it. 

Karkat inhales. 

Sollux tries to gasp as something is pulled from him. It is slowly sucked from deep inside his lungs and spun from his throat and mouth. No air manages to come in, not when whatever it is comes out. Karkat’s hands catch Sollux as he starts to collapse, mouth never moving as he seems to inhale for an eternity, emptying him. When he finally pulls back, Sollux finds himself boneless on top of him.

“So that’s what gratitude tastes like on you,” Karkat murmurs before heaving a sensual sigh. Sollux gasps against Karkat’s chest, his fingers gripping the sheets. The need to sleep tugs and pulls at him, spiralling him downwards as he feels his body search for what he’s missing. “One down,” Karkat says as his fingers curl into his hair, rubbing soothing circles that make his eyes start to close. “Countless flavors to go.” His eyes shut. The only thing he can feel is the warmth of Karkat’s chest below him.

\----

Sollux wakes up with a harsh jerk, his body still sprawled out on top of Karkat. The chest beneath his head raises slow and even, his body not seeming to have noticed Sollux’s movements. Sollux shudders against Karkat as his lungs remember what breathing his, and his heart hammers and rushes blood through his body. There is a hole in him somewhere, and however long he has spent asleep has done nothing to fill it. He knows what that hole is from, recognizes its absence, but he can’t figure out just what is missing. What had Karkat said it was? He hadn’t been able to understand him while his body fought to stay awake and failed spectacularly.

“Look who finally woke up,” Karkat murmurs as he stretches beneath Sollux. His muscles move against the others cheek before clawed fingers run through Sollux’s hair. Sollux pulls back, tries to move away, and collapses a bit as his head spins.

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Karkat says as his hand returns to Sollux’s scalp. There are distinct points of pressure. They are sharp, but do not cut, and it makes Sollux shudder as he feels wetness on his face. “If that’s how you feel after having one measly emotion sucked out of you then the rest of the night is going to be one fucking shit show after another.”

Sollux doesn’t respond, instead he shoves his face against Karkat’s chest, because it’s all he can do. He pushes his mouth to it, his nose, and tries to hold back the sobs. Everything left in him is whipping up, trying to fill in what has been lost. Something comes to the forefront of his being, and with a swift movement of his jaw, Sollux bites into the skin below him. The sound of confused pain that comes makes Sollux clench down hard. Hot copper seeps up around his teeth, but he stays steadfast. He will not let go, not unless he is forced to. Fingers grip tight into his hair and yank back hard. 

“The fuck are you doing?” Karkat bites out as Sollux fights against the pain in his skull. Karkat gives a harsh tug. Sollux lets go with a gasp as he is pulled away, pain racing through his scalp. Karkat holds him at arm's length, his eyes glaring and teeth bared.

“You never thaid I couldn’t hurt you,” Sollux pants as he looks at Karkat. His fingers scramble over the others chest, looking for the bite. When they find it, they dig in, and Karkat throws him off. It wrenches his neck as he feel some of his hair part with his skull. He is partially airborne while his lower body drags over the bed. When he comes to the edge, he falls over the side and hits the stone floor hard. The loss of air reminds him of Karkat’s kiss, and anxiety tinges his being. It doesn’t last though, not with what he knows now.

“What’th wrong?” he asks as he pushes himself up on shaking arms. “Forget a loophole?”

Fingers dig into the hair on top of his head and pull him up to face Karkat. “You have no idea what I can do to you,” Karkat snaps. “You think a bite can do shit to me? Your tiny little teeth aren’t anything more than a nuisance to me. In fact.” Karkat’s fingers plunge into Sollux’s mouth. His gag reflex is instant, and he feels his empty stomach heave as Karkat’s fingers wiggle around over his tongue. Sollux’s hands scramble against Karkat’s wrists as fingers grip one of his back molars. They push so hard he feels something cracks, and then they pull. 

Sollux lets out a scream as the flavor of blood explodes over his tongue, and Karkat holds a cracked molar in front of his face. “You should be thankful I don’t take the rest,” Karkat spits in his face. “Oops, forgot, you couldn’t feel that even if you wanted to.”

The grin Karkat gives is quickly erased as Sollux spits blood into his face. Surprise takes over Karkat’s features as Sollux grins at him, tongue pushing down into the place his tooth once was. The pain roots him in his resolve, helps it grow.

“Do you really think you can hurt me when I can take so much from you with just a simple tug?” Karkat asks, eyes flashing as he tosses the tooth somewhere behind him. 

“I’ll find a way,” Sollux tells him. “Maybe Terezi can help. You didn’t theem to like what she did with that cane of herth.” 

Karkat throws him again, this time putting him back on the bed. Whatever the mattress is, it isn’t really soft, more just padded, and Sollux loses air again. It comes back quickly this time as he sits up to keep talking.

“I doubt that felt good, being told to fuck off like that,” he growls. Karkat’s body language is feral on all fours as he starts to move around Sollux, circling him. “Maybe I should get a thtick like herth. Shove it up your ath next time.”

Karkat snarls at him as he comes closer, steam raising from his body. Sollux moves into an open sitting position, taunting Karkat as he sits relaxed with his feet out and propped up on his forearms. He’s practically laying down.

“I’ll keep you away from me until _I’m_ ready for you to feed.”

“You can’t do that,” Karkat bites out. 

Sollux gives a mean smirk. “Never thaid I couldn’t.”

“You can only turn me away three times before I get to keep you,” Karkat reminds him as he reaches for his feet and tugs him down the mattress. Sollux manages to keep himself somewhat propped up on his arms, putting him at face level with Karkat. He’s found a loophole, something that pisses Karkat off for once, just as much as Karkat pisses off Sollux. 

“Unleth I break a theal, wouldn’t I just be telling you to fuck off once?” Sollux asks as his brain works, looking at everything it can as he gives a smug smile to Karkat.

Karkat’s face twists as his hands go tight on Sollux’s legs, painfully bruising them. “Look who’th gotten all thmart,” he seethes, the false lisp making Sollux smile.

“Look at who wath dumb enough to get caught,” he replies smugly. He can do this now, he knows an out, and Karkat can’t do a damn thing about it. Karkat can’t kill him, can only hurt him, and if Sollux can figure out what Terezi did, then Karkat will only be able to do that when Sollux is good and ready for it. “What’th wrong?” he continues as Karkat’s teeth flash in a sneer. “Not uthed to lothing? How does it feel to know a human got the better of you?” Sollux is smiling as he speaks, relaxing back as Karkat seems to waiver in the amount of steam coming off of his body. “That I can-”

There is no blur of motion, that is how fast Karkat moves. Sollux barely gets a chance to fight the kiss, the hands that hold him still as Karkat sucks the swelling inside him out. He thrashes, pushes, because no. He was winning damn it, he was winning. All the things he had been saying, they were right, they were true. Karkat can’t just take them from him. 

Sollux turns on his sides and shudders when Karkat pulls off. “What’s wrong?” Karkat asks him. “Done being a conceited little prick? Too bad, I was actually starting to respect you for not being a squabbling piece of shit.” His hand digs hard into Sollux’s side, nails piercing skin. “But you know what they say about the prideful, they always fall the fucking hardest.” Sollux gasps as Karkat forces him back onto his back.“Though kudos, snack cake,” Karkat growls. “You’ve figured out how to piss me off.” One of his hands come up and grip Sollux’s throat. 

Sollux grabs at the hands that wrap around his windpipe, fingers scrambling, because this can’t happen. No, Karkat can’t do this. They have a deal, no killing. He does that and...what happens if he does? Sollux never made a stipulation for that. Karkat kills him and he’s just out of a food source, an easily replaceable one, and Sollux loses his life.

Sollux’s heartbeat pounds in him as he starts to thrash. Nothing about this is right. He can’t move, his lungs are on fire for multiple reasons, and if Karkat keeps squeezing he’ll...he’ll. His eyesight is going black, and Karkat is nothing but a grinning blob above him as Sollux’s sight tunnels down. His hands aren’t doing much anymore, just slapping at him.

“Sollux,” he hears as he gasps against the hand on his throat. Something nudges his shoulder. “Sollux, hey.” 

He scrambles against hands as he is shaken. 

“Sollux, wake up you dumb shit, you’re scaring me!”

Sollux throws himself forwards. His eyes fly around the room wildly as he breathes in deep gulps of cool oxygen. There is a thud to his side, and he turns to find Karkat half sprawled on the floor.

“Karkat?” he pants. His heart feels like it’s playing double dutch it’s jumping so hard. “Oh shit, Karkat, I’m sorry.” He quickly scurries to the side of the bed and offers him a hand.

“Fucking hell, what was going on?” Karkat asks as Sollux helps him up on the bed. He’s wearing one of his stupid sweaters again, the cool air of October not one of his favorite things. Sollux notes that his brown eyes are watering slightly, and that he’s rubbing at a spot on the back of his skull.

“Bad dream,” Sollux replies with a little sigh of relief, though he is shaking. “M-Mituna was in the hospital, and you were...were-” He takes a harsh swallow as he feels his eyes heat up.

“Whoa, hey hey hey,” Karkat says as he jerks forwards. “Calm down, it was just a dream, I’m right here you overgrown toddler. I’m not dead.”

Sollux shakes his head. “You weren’t dead, you were,” he shudders as dream pieces flit to him. “You were some sort of...demon.” 

Karkat stares at him with a confused face. “I...what?” He suddenly starts laughing. “I watch romcoms and cry at Where the Red Fern Grows, and you’re telling me that I was a fucking demon? What did I do, give you a wedgie so bad it blue balled you?”

Sollux shakes his head. “No, you...” he starts shaking again. 

“Hey,” Karkat says softly as he moves up on the bed. Sollux reaches for him, arms wrapping around his neck. “Is everything okay?” he asks as Sollux pushes his face into Karkat’s shoulder. He smells like sweat and earth, his body warm under the sweater. “You’ve been acting weird the last few days. I mean, no dates, you barely called is...is everything okay with us?”

Sollux nods into Karkat’s neck, feels himself unwinding. It’s okay, Karkat’s here, is holding him, pressing little kisses against the crown of his skull. “Been forgetting to take my meds,” Sollux replies. “Been feeling kinda empty.”

“Oh for fuck sake you dumb ass,” Karkat grumbles. “Wait here.” He gets up off the bed, and Sollux watches him go. There is a rustling sound from down the hall, and when Karkat returns he has a little white pill and bulging cheeks. He holds the pill out to Sollux, who takes it and puts it on his tongue. He pulls Karkat to him when he climbs back onto the bed, and kisses him. The water that pushes into his mouth helps the pill wash down easy, and ends with Karkat’s tongue making lazy circles inside Sollux’s mouth. Sollux shudders as he pulls Karkat down on top of him.

Their mouths move gently against one another, Karkat’s body a warm weight on Sollux as he lays under his sheets. Karkat’s hands are warm as they move over Sollux’s chest, pushing and rubbing to remove the last of his anxiety. He knows just what to do to make him feel more human, though Sollux has to admit, the nightmare has left him feeling really drained. He’s going to need a nap later.

“Sollux?” They both pause, and Sollux looks over Karkat’s shoulder. 

“Hey, Mituna,” he says. “Little busy.”

“No, st-”

“Don’t you have your own date to entertain?” Karkat calls. Sollux watches a hand come and grab Mituna, a feminine laugh following. 

“Looks like we’re not the only ones feeling frisky,” Sollux says as he kisses Karkat’s neck. 

“And here I thought we were going to go out today,” Karkat sighs when Sollux starts to pull at his clothing. 

“If you can still walk after, then we will,” Sollux replies with a grin. His hands trace up warm, taut skin as he traces Karkat’s muscles. 

“Who says you’re topping?” Karkat asks as his muscles jump at the light touches. So few actually know how ripped he is from working out at their local gym, but Sollux knows, and he loves peeling off the others clothes to get his hands on his muscles. Karkat had started doing it so that he could protect people, that was what he had told Sollux. Sollux thinks he just likes being able to lift up people larger than himself and prove his short stature is not a limitation.

He pushes his face back into Karkat’s shoulder, smells him, and then kisses along the flesh. Karkat lets out a little groan as Sollux sucks hickey’s into the skin, his hands gripping Karkat’s backside as Karkat squirms in his lap. 

“I just had a very traumatic dream,” Sollux replies as he lays back, Karkat following. 

“And that gives you topping privileges how?” Karkat asks with an exhale of annoyance before kissing him. “If anything, you should be letting me take care of you.” 

Sollux nods, liking that idea. “Okay,” he says as he rolls, putting Karkat’s fully naked body below him onto his bare bed. “But I want to ride you first.” 

Karkat seems 110% okay with that as his finger push into Sollux, cold and wet. It makes him groan and gasp as his body tries to take in the sudden intrusion. 

“Lil’ warning next time,” he manages as Karkat pushes his finger inside Sollux, crooking and turning it to elicit gasps from the other. 

“But that’s no fun,” Karkat replies with a pout. A second finger is added, maybe a bit too soon, but Sollux takes it. Karkat’s fingers twist inside Sollux, spread, and it makes him push down. Another is added, and the three fingers make him feel full, wanting, and when they slip out, Karkat’s dick slips in. Sollux can’t keep from crying out. 

“Shh, shh, hey,” Karkat says, hands coming up to pull Sollux down. Sollux shudders as he curves his back to press his forehead against Karkat’s, their height difference making it a tad difficult. Karkat’s hands make gentle circles against Sollux’s lower back, soothing the muscles as Sollux shifts and rolls his hips gently. “There you go,” Karkat pants against Sollux’s shoulder as Sollux starts to rise and fall, his body taking Karkat’s girth. It feels like the first time, their movement amazing and soft as Karkat kisses little marks into Sollux shoulder and moves his hands over his back. It isn’t though, they’ve done this before. Karkat was Sollux’s first after all. 

Sollux keeps moving, raising himself up slowly and then coming back down. His hips move in gentle circles to feel the way Karkat fits inside him, memorizing it. Gentle kisses cover his face and mouth, pecking at his lips.

“Love you,” Karkat says softly when they break for air.

Sollux’s heart stutters. “What?” he asks as he stops moving.

“I said, I love you, you idiot,” Karkat replies as he lays panting beneath Sollux. 

A warm bubble begins in his chest, growing as he looks down at the panting visage of his boyfriend. His cheeks are glowing with the slightest blush, and it makes Sollux’s chest feel like it may pop. “Me too,” comes out as a shuddering breath. To his surprise, tears start to form. It’s been so long since he’s heard those words from anyone. “I love you too.” The warmth in him swells as he smiles down at Karkat and he moves a little fast. 

Karkat lets out a groan and slides his hands up Sollux’s arms. “Then get down here and kiss me,” he pants.

Sollux goes, his heart feeling light as pleasure fills him, his body trembling. Karkat’s mouth moves against him, his tongue twines with his. Karkat breathes in, and the warm bubble inside Sollux pops as it is pulled from him. His hands scramble as Karkat holds him close to him, feels heat as he tries to move. Karkat pushes him down, and Sollux becomes confused. He was on top, he was...he…

Karkat rams into him and Sollux would gasp if he could. His eyes fly open, and the stone world around them looms heavy and dark. Tears slide down his cheeks when Karkat finally pulls away. 

“That was beautiful,” Karkat tells him, voice sated as his hips keep moving. “Thought I was going to cum just from your little performance.” He licks a line up Sollux’s neck, and Sollux starts to shake. No, this is wrong. This is the nightmare, that was real. That was his real Karkat and Mituna’s not in the hospital; the world is right and he is loved.

“Shh, shh,” Karkat mimics as he rubs soft hands over Sollux’s cheek. “There you go.” 

Sollux lets out a sob that is emphasized by the hard thrust Karkat pushes inside him. “Stop,” he tells him as his hands scramble weakly against his body. “Karkat, stop, please.” How could he do this to him? He loved him, didn’t he? This isn’t real.

“You switch so fast,” Karkat growls as he comes back down. He kisses up Sollux’s throat, and it makes Sollux sob. No, he doesn’t want this, he doesn’t. Everything in him lags, twitches, and goes lax as Karkat keeps moving. His erection is lost, and he barely responds as tears slide down his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry, Sollux,” Karkat says with enough sarcasm that Sollux feels like he could choke on it. “Wanted to know what love tasted like on you.” He kisses him with a false sweetness that makes Sollux’s stomach clench. “It was phenomenal.” His mouth descends onto Sollux’s, and he doesn’t fight it. He doesn’t want to feel this anymore, he wants it gone. Karkat is happy to take it from him, and fills him with sticky hot cum as he sucks Sollux’s feelings down. Sollux slips into numb darkness as Karkat slips from him.

\-----

Sollux wakes up slowly this time. There are no hands, no touches, just him in the middle of the very large bed in the middle of a very large room that’s somewhere in a very large castle. He sits up carefully and looks for Karkat, because he can’t understand why he wouldn’t be here. Where is he, anyways? What’s going on? Shouldn’t Sollux be back at home by now? Shifting, Sollux feels something lukewarm and sticky leak from inside him.

“Bastard,” he grits out as he realizes what it is. Are there such things as demon STIs? Is he in danger of getting one? He shifts and feels is trickle, and he suddenly has a burning desire to do the same to Karkat. 

“Karkat,” he calls as he stands. He limps through the room that is little more to him than a fuzzy cavern. He squints, trying to figure out where to go, and finds a half open door. Inside there is something akin to a bathroom. The grime on his body seems to itch, and Sollux gets into the shower. If Karkat isn’t here, then he might as well clean up.

He turns it on, and leaves it as cold as possible. The last thing he wants is to feel is more heat. There are bruises all over, cuts, and it takes a while for him to get as much as he can out of his backside. Time to time he drinks the water as well, filling the emptiness in his stomach. When was the last time he ate?

When he gets out, Sollux looks for something to dry off with. The only thing around is a damp towel sitting on the sink, and he grabs it. It’s a nice one, a really nice one, and it whisks the moisture right off of him. Every press of it to his skin makes Sollux’s hands clench tighter and tighter. When he finally finishes, he chucks the towel onto the floor and leaves it there. 

“Karkat!” he calls as he comes out of the room. 

No one answers. He goes to the other doors, the larger ones, and tries to open them. They are locked. With gritted teeth he tries again, and again, until he is banging against them and screaming obscenities. He’s not sure how long he tries, but in the end he goes to the nearest small furniture item, and flips it. Soon he’s flipping the rest. Tables, chairs, vases. He pulls art from the walls and flings it every which way. He smashes glass, and with the shards, stabs through curtains that look like they are made out of skin. When he finishes shredding them, he starts to plunge them into any heart he can see between stones.

By the time he is done, the room is chaos, and his bleeding hands still itch to break more.

“Guess I should have been more worried about you breaking my possessions,” Karkat’s voice says as he enters the room. The large doors swing shut soundlessly behind him.

“Where were you,” Sollux snarls as he stands near the windows.

“Putting the finishing touches on a deal,” Karkat replies as he walks forwards. “A five minute conversation always takes fifty with that frost brained idiot. He keeps himself so hopped up on endorphins I don’t know if he can even feel them anymore.” He’s wearing those stupid pants again. They make his ass look fuckable as he bends down to lift up one of the items Sollux broke. He heaves a sigh of annoyance, lifts his hand, and snaps. As if on strings, everything springs back to its original place, whipping by and bouncing off Sollux as they go. 

“Shouldn’t I be home?” Sollux growls as Karkat makes his way towards the bed.

“Nights not up,” Karkat replies as he stretches. He sounds tired. 

“I’ve thlept twice, you were gone for over an hour, and I’m pretty sure the rest of that shit took a while,” Sollux snaps. “Tho tell me, how much longer could I pothibly have?”

Karkat glares at him. “Try eighteen hours, though if you keep being this insufferable I may as well end it all early and throw you back to your world.”

Ice shoots up Sollux’s spine before he bares his teeth. “Eighteen hours?! How doeth that make thenthe?”

“We’re in hell, or did you forget that little fact?” Karkat asks as he sits up on the bed. “Time down here has a nasty habit of getting away from people. An hour up top? Try six hours down here.”

“You thon of a bitch,” Sollux bites out. “You can’t jutht change the ruleth because we go to hell. I’ve been here way too long. Dealth off, take me home.”

Karkat lets out an ugly laugh. “Yeah, because completely leaving out anything that deals with dates or times gives you the option to make demands.” He sits cross legged on the bed. “I said one night in your realm, I mean one night in your realm. I won’t keep you here longer than that. It’s not my fault time doesn’t work the same way here, it’s your fault for not telling me you didn’t want me to bring you.”

“I didn’t even know it was an option!” Sollux yells as he takes a step towards him.

“Oh, poor you, didn’t do any of your homework or ask me a single fucking question. I feel soooo bad for someone who couldn’t even think to ask about shit like this when making a deal that literally could end not only his life, but his fucking brother’s as well,” Karkat snaps at him. “You’re such a poor little victim, having signed up for all this crap without asking about fine print and how it would work before closing a deal and sealing it!”

Sollux walks briskly forwards, eyes trained on Karkat as Karkat stares right back. He gets to the bed, reaches out, and grabs one of Karkat’s horns. It doesn’t seem to surprise him in the least. Sollux bares his teeth.

“Take me home,” he grits out as Karkat reaches upwards. He jerks Karkat’s head by the horn, and smiles at the look that flashes across Karkat’s face. He does it again. “You fucking heard me, take me-”

Karkat grabs his wrist, tugs him forwards, and Sollux throws the punch. It connects with Karkat’s jaw, makes his head snap, and Sollux feels a strange sense of gratification run through him. 

Karkat reaches up and wipes away a thin trail of blood from his swelling lip. “Is that how you want to play this?” he asks Sollux, voice low and dangerous. 

Sollux snarls at him. “Thought that was the only way you played.” He pulls back for another punch, throws it, and misses as Karkat uses his odd speed to duck to the side. Sollux ends up throwing himself forwards, and Karkat catches him easily. The bite comes sharp to the side of his neck, drawing blood as hands rake along his sides and back.

“You fucker,” he growls as he climbs up, trying to find some purchase. They fight, hands clawing and pushing, and even though it hurts, Sollux knows Karkat is holding back. He has to, because he can’t kill him, it’s a rule. That makes Sollux angrier as they move, bodies colliding and pressing as they roll between punches, scratches, and bites that pull groans and blood. 

Sollux ends up on top as he pants, Karkat lying below him with his chest heaving. 

“Well doesn’t this feel familiar?” Karkat asks with a bloodied grin. Sollux growls as his hands go to Karkat’s pants. His hands move without his brain, yanking and tearing at fabric as Karkat kicks at him. The kicks help him get the fabric down faster.

“What are you doing?” he asks as Sollux throws them to the floor. 

“Leveling the playing field.” His hands grab Karkat’s ankles, lift them up and back, and the look of surprise is so fucking satisfying. Sollux goes to line up dry with Karkat’s hole when he feels something wet dribble over his cock. 

Confused, he looks down and sees a small vial hovering over him dick, pouring what looks like lubricant over it. The son of a bitch isn’t going to let him in dry? Fine, but like hell he's going to prep him. Sollux is going to make Karkat as dirty as he feels, make him feel a little pain. Sollux hits the vial away, hears it shatter off to the side, and pushes his hardened dick to Karkat’s hole.

“You sure did change gears,” Karkat chides as Sollux pushes against his tightness.

“Isn’t that why you wanted me?” he growls before pushing hard. 

Karkat’s head snaps back as Sollux’s cock forces its way into him. Karkat’s body is tight, obscenely warm, and Sollux wants to tear it apart, split him in two, break him, and hear him scream. Instead he gets a moan. He wants to shut that noise down immediately. 

Pushing Karkat’s knees back into the bed, he gets a grunt of pain before he kisses Karkat more with his teeth than anything else. He tastes blood. Karkat tosses his head, pulls, twists his mouth to try and get away from the teeth as Sollux starts to move inside him, thrusts short from the tightness of the others body. Sollux doesn’t release until he feels hands tearing at his side, and he gasps. 

“Was wondering when this would come into play,” Karkat snarls as Sollux lets out a pained moan. Blood is trickling from shallow cuts on his side. He wants to return the favor three fold. 

“What?” Sollux asks as his hands reach up and grabs at Karkat’s skull. His hands tug at Karkat’s hair, and he is greeted with a moan that makes his cock twitch and mouth wish for blood. “Did you think I was jutht going to be your bottom bitch?” 

“I was banking on the fact that you wouldn’t,” Karkat grits out before Sollux ducks down. Their teeth click as he bites at Karkat, his teeth sinking into flesh as much as Karkat’s do. He pulls at warm, black hair, and feels Karkat’s insides start to quiver as he thrusts in faster and harder. A clawed hand wraps in his hair, and Sollux doesn’t shake it off. 

The taste of blood in his mouth becomes almost pleasantly familiar as the two of them bite, claw, roll, and thrust against one another. Sollux finds himself on bottom at one point, mouth wrapped around one of Karkat’s fingers. He gnaws at the flesh, tastes copper and heat, and moans as Karkat grips his shoulders. He hates enjoying it, wants to bludgeon himself for doing it, but his hips keep moving. The need to tear into himself, into Karkat, grows, and he reaches up. His hands tighten around Karkat’s throat.

“Can you choke a demon?” he asks, though he doesn’t wait for an answer as he rolls them. He starts to squeeze, fingers tight around Karkat’s throat, and he’s surprised that Karkat doesn’t fight it. Instead he rocks his hips up harder, his hands bruise Sollux’s hips and slide in the blood leaking from his side, and then Sollux feels the heat. 

Karkat shudders just as it starts, his dick jumping against Sollux’s belly, and Sollux realizes he’s cuming. 

“What are you doing?” he growls as his hand wraps around Karkat’s cock. “I thay you could go?”

“Didn’t say I couldn’t,” Karkat gasps at the removal of one of the hands around his throat. 

Sollux snarls as he keeps his fingers tight at the base of Karkat’s cock. His hips move quick and hard, trying to harm as much as they can as he stabs into Karkat. His other hand stays on Karkat’s throat, making him heave wet gasps as steam bubbles off of him. Sollux enjoys watching the way his mouth gapes, heat rolling out in wet clouds as he gasps. His eyes waiver behind the cloud, red and luminous; hot pits of blood that boil beneath his cornea. He lets out a choked sound of pain, and Sollux finds himself at the tipping point. 

With a rough tug at Karkat’s dick, a painful one that makes Karkat cry out, Sollux cums while pushed as deep inside the other as possible. He fills Karkat with his own cum, dirties him and uses him, grins as he jerks the cock in his hand again. Clawed hands wrap around his wrists, and Sollux snarls. 

“No,” he says as he rides out the pleasure of orgasm as his hips just move. “No!” 

Karkat yanks away the hands, pulls Sollux down, and finds his mouth. He uses teeth on Karkat’s tongue, claws at what he can, but Karkat sucks every drop of rage and lust away as if it were nothing but water vapor. Sollux shudders as he Karkat cums, covering their bellies in spunk as Sollux tries to pull at his anger, and finds nothing there.

\---

“Wake up.” It comes with a hard slap across Sollux face, and he wakes up with a groan. His eyes open weakly as his brain tries to orient what is happening. Is he in his room? Hell? The hospital? Sollux tries to lift his head, and finds that he is fully upright. With a gentle shift he realizes that the only thing keeping him up are tight coils around his arms and legs. They seems to pulse, and it makes his heart jump into his throat as his brain provides him with ideas as to why that might be.

“About time you woke up,” Karkat grumbles. “You slept any longer and we wouldn’t have time to put you back together.”

Sollux quickly looks down, expecting to find holes, cuts, something. Instead he is met with the bite and claw marks Karkat had left before. 

“Haven’t started taking you apart yet, dumb ass,” Karkat tells him. There is a flash of metal, and Sollux finds himself staring down at his stomach. Karkat has the knife pushed under his right ribs, the metal sharp.

“Th-thtop, Karkat, no, pleathe, th-”

“You want me to all up and fix that little issue?” comes from behind him, and it makes Sollux freeze. He’s never heard that voice before. It is dark, cool, and drawling. It puts a shiver up his spine.

“I would love it if you could,” Karkat replies to the disembodied voice. “His fucking lisp is driving me insane, but I don’t want to give that Terezi bitch more reason to suspect what’s going on than she already does.”

“Yeah, sounds like she could become a real pain the ass,” the voice adds. Sollux can hear shifting behind him.

“You’re telling me,” Karkat scoffs before he slides the knife in quick. 

Sollux lets out a gasp as the blade goes straight in, severing items as Karkat moves the knife around inside him. The scream he lets out rips through the room before he takes in panting breathes. 

“She was able to ward me with a cane,” Karkat continues as his hand moves. “A cane! Who the fuck knows how to put a warding spell on something with the diameter of a nickel?” It is fire in his gut as Karkat keeps going, cutting in an almost circular motion as blood pours forth from Sollux’s stomach. 

“Thtop,” Sollux begs as the knife grits against his spine.

“Ain’t she blind?” he hears behind him, the voice disregarding his plea.

“To be honest, I have no idea what’s going on with that human’s eyesight,” Karkat grumbles as Sollux sobs. “I mean, she’s- oh for fuck sake would you shut up!” Karkat reaches up, his bloody hand slick as he grabs Sollux’s head. 

“No, no,” Sollux says as he thrashes. His bindings hold tight, and Karkat gets his mouth on him. He expect him to suck, which he does, be it’s only to pull his tongue into Karkat’s mouth. Sollux’s eyes go wide a second before sharp teeth dig in and Karkat’s head twists.

Sollux screams as his tongue is yanks from his mouth. Something on the underside rips, bubbling up blood beneath it. Karkat pulls back, the tip of Sollux’s tongue still in his mouth, barely hanging on to the rest. 

The knife pushes in past his lips, pushes down, and cuts through his tongue and gums. Blood comes fast and hot, choking him as he feels vomit rise in his belly. He watches Karkat toss his head back, his tongue disappears into Karkat’s mouth, and he begins to chew. 

“Mind stopping that,” he asks the person behind Sollux, his mouth still partially full. “Don’t grow it back, just stop it. I don’t want him passing out yet.” 

“I can do that,” comes the voice behind him. Sollux coughs blood onto his chest, feels it pour down his chin as his head spins and pain lances through his mouth. His eyes can barely focus enough to view the demon that appears before him. His tall, much taller than Karkat, and his horns twirl upward towards the ceiling. There is something dark red on his face, and Sollux finds himself thinking of clowns. 

“Hey there, motherfucker,” the guy says as he grabs Sollux’s cheeks. “Open up.” 

Sollux sobs at the kiss that follows, an icy tongue slipping between his lips and sliding further than anything natural ever could. The tip of his tongue pushes to the stump of Sollux’s, and it feels like freezer burn. He cries out as the bleeding stops, the flesh knits back together, and he finds himself able to breathe when the demon pulls back.

“Aw, c’mon Tavbro, don’t look at me like that,” the demon says when he pulls away and licks blood from his mouth. He’s looking past Sollux. “This ain’t nothing but part of a deal. You know your mouth is the only one I ever really up and want.” 

Sollux’s head drops when the demon’s hands fall away. 

“You are sickeningly domestic with that human, you know that?” Karkat grumbles as he comes forwards again. Sollux shakes as he looks at the knife. The stump of his tongue wiggles as he tries to speak, beg, cry. It all just comes out as disjointed syllables before Karkat shoves the knife back in at the other side, working to create an arch under Sollux’s ribs. 

“Jealous?” he hears Gamzee say. Through tears of pain, Sollux watches Karkat snarl. Sollux can hear wet sounds behind him that don’t match up with his flesh tearing. There is a slight groan, and not one of pain.

“Shut up, Gamzee,” Karkat grumbles as he goes about pulling down the flesh he has torn. “You always suck the joy out of everything when you flap that tongue of yours.”

“I thought that was your motherfucking thing,” Gamzee replies with a laugh. 

Karkat rolls his eyes as Sollux cries out against new sensation. Karkat’s hands are moving inside him, pulling and twisting things off as he looks for something. Sollux pants and squirms, coughs up blood as his stomach is eviscerated and his lungs sliced. Karkat’s hands finally seem to find what they are looking for, and Sollux moans as he realizes what it is.

“You can 100% grow this piece of shit back right?” he asks as his fingers wrap around Sollux’s heart. “Because I do not want to put it back once I get it out.” 

“I can give it a motherfucking shot,” Gamzee calls. Sollux feels what’s left of his stomach drop inside him as he sobs. 

“Whatever,” Karkat grumbles as he gives a swift tug, and Sollux freezes. His brain peaks while his body is laid low. The kiss that Karkat gives him is long and sensual before he sucks. Fear and pain spiral away, leaving Sollux feeling even emptier than he thought possible. He sags in his restraints, numb and unmoving while his body tries to figure out where all the blood is going.

“All yours,” Karkat says as he holds up Sollux’s heart. His red eyes look over the muscle, and he gives a grin.

“Come on, Tavbro,” Gamzee says behind Sollux. “If you’re really worried about me touching this motherfucker wrong, you can all up and help me out.”

Sollux’s world is tilted as the restraints lay him back. Gamzee stands above him along with someone else. Sollux’s eyes try to focus on the other person, but he can’t quite do it. There isn’t enough oxygen in his brain, yet it still tries.

He’s seen that face before, he has to. His brain focuses as much as it can on the new face to forget about the hands that are reaching inside his chest cavity. But that would make no sense. He doesn’t know anyone with horns, not besides the demons in this room.

“They look good on him, don’t they,” Gamzee says in Sollux’s ear as he he stares at the person before him. “They’re great to grab on to, if you know what I’m saying. Mind helping me out here Tav?” The boy’s eyes look away from Sollux’s face and instead at his ruined stomach. Sollux can already feel the blood flowing again just from the two hands inside. It goes quicker when the other guy’s hands joins them.

The guy looks around Sollux age, with dark hair cut into a mohawk and brown eyes that he’s sworn he’s seen. The horns on either side of his head make Sollux think of goal posts, but it is the face that has him so curious. He has seen that face, where has he seen that face? Maybe it’s the septum piercing that throwing him off. He just needs to take that away, and the white bone like horns on either side of his head. Take those away and...and... Who the fuck is he?

“Looks like I missed one,” Karkat says next to them, and Sollux’s head lolls over to look at him. 

“What?” Gamzee asks.

“Curiosity,” Karkat replies as he stands next to Sollux, heart still in hand. “I think he’s trying to figure out who your child bride is.”

“Stop calling him that,” Gamzee murmurs coldly, his hands still working inside. Sollux realizes he can breathe again. “Or I won’t put your food bank back together.”

“Sorry, didn’t realize you had enough capacity in that frozen tundra of a brain of yours to give a shit,” Karkat chides. 

Karkat’s not interesting. Sollux turns his head to look at the sad looking boy with horns growing from his head. Who is this?

“You keep looking at Tavros like that and I’ll have to tear those eyes of yours right up and out of your skull,” Gamzee says as Karkat leans down to kiss along Sollux neck. The name clicks somewhere and Sollux knows who this person is. He was all over the news the past few months, the miracle kid that disappeared. His brother had been Mituna’s RA. Questions zip around in his mind, wonders and thoughts that disappear with just the slightest suck of lips.

Sollux’s eyes roll away from Tavros and stare at the ceiling. He wavers in and out of consciousness as Gamzee keeps working, fixing his insides and sealing his chest shut. When Gamzee reaches into his mouth with clawed fingers, Sollux opens wide on his own accord. He’s fixing him, there is no reason not to open his jaw. Plus he has to yawn.

“How’s it coming?” Karkat asks. Sollux barely registers his voice. 

“Just rebuilding this tooth and tongue piece and he’ll be up and ready to go home,” Gamzee hums.

Sollux sees the way Tavros’s face twitches, but doesn’t care to think about it. Karkat crowds around the other side of Sollux’s head, looking down and watching Gamzee work.

“Why does he have two?” he asks as Gamzee’s fingers stroke.

“Tongue is two motherfucking muscles,” Gamzee tells him. “Skin and tissues the only thing that makes it into one thing.”

Karkat stares at Sollux as he feels skin wrapping around the two pieces. “Can you keep it that way?” Karkat asks Gamzee.

Gamzee chuckles. “Course I can, but I thought you didn’t want any suspicion.” 

“What? An emotionally charged kid can’t do something stupid after learning his brother might die?” Karkat asks him. “Plus it might actually make the inexperienced pillow prince worth kissing outside of feedings.”

Gamzee smiles. “Touche.” Sollux feels the skin part, and when Gamzee’s fingers come out, he swallows. There are two distinct items in his mouth. Neat. 

“Are we done?” he asks as soon as the fingers are out. His voice is bland as the cords around him start to pull away. Tavros’s wet, warm hands are the only ones that keep Sollux from planking to the floor. They are lukewarm on Sollux’s back, and he doesn’t even spare them a thought as he stands in the room. His tongues sit still in his mouth, his body is motionless, and he waits for whatever is next.

“Tavbro,” Gamzee says. “Go grab me that lil’ vile.” 

Tavros looks at Gamzee, nods his head, and Sollux catches a look at his body before he goes. He’s wearing something akin to loin cloth it seems, covering him just enough that he can’t see his junk, but that’s about it. The rest of him doesn’t look like what he had seen on the television at all. He has muscle, height. Gamzee’s hand grabs Sollux face and forces him to look at him while Tavros leaves.

“You eyeing my work?” Gamzee asks, voice cold and dangerous. There isn’t even a stirring in Sollux as he speaks.

“He lookth different,” is all that comes out. A fact, a simple fact. His lisp sounds odd with the new tongues. Whatever.

Gamzee grins and lets Sollux’s chin go. “Yeah. My brother there didn’t want to have any weakness all up in that body of his. With all the pepper out of his blood, I’d say he shaped up damn fine.”

Sollux doesn’t even try to shrug, not sure why he wanted to in the first place, and stays still. Karkat’s hands touch his waist, and he doesn’t move. His warm nose presses to Sollux’s neck, and he hums. “Damn,” he murmurs. “Was hoping you’d still have a little something left. We still have time before I actually have to take you back up top.”

“Good,” Gamzee says as Tavros comes back and holds out a little glass vial. Gamze takes it from him, pulls Tavros close, and kisses him nice and long. Tavros is taller than he was on television, but compared to Gamzee he is still short. Sollux is just an inch shy of the demon’s height as well. He watches with disinterested, unfocused eyes as the two kiss, Gamzee’s tongue lapping over Tavros’s mouth as Tavros stands complacent and responding. His hands lock around Gamzee’s waist, and the demon pulls back with a grin.

Gamzee’s concentration switches to Sollux. “Now, motherfucker, listen up. This is how you’re brother’s gonna get his live on.” Gamzee holds up the vial with one hand as he pulls Tavros to his side with the other. Tavros lays his forehead to Gamzee’s shoulder, eyes closed as his bloody hands stay clasped around Gamzee.

Sollux stares at the empty vial. It looks like it is made with dark glass, or crystal maybe. He doesn't care which. “What do I do with that?” He can’t do anything with it if he doesn’t know how to use it.

“Just fill it up,” Gamzee says. “Tears, snot, spit, I wouldn’t recommend blood though. That could have some side effects that would have Karkat hounding me for a while.” 

Sollux nods as he reaches for the glass vial. Gamzee goes to hand it to him, and third hand snatches it away.

“Are you fucking nuts,” Karkat seethes at Gamzee.

Gamzee blinks at him in confusion for a moment. “Oh shit,” he finally says with a little laugh. “Sorry my brother, almost trashed that deal didn’t I?” 

“Idiot,” Karkat grumbles as he presents the vial to Sollux. “Means of waking up your brother, as promised.” Sollux doesn’t reach for it, and instead Karkat shoves it into his hand with a snarl. “Really? You really are a toddler.” 

“And Tavros?” Gamzee asks as Karkat goes to grab Sollux’s arm. 

Karkat sighs and turns to the almost motionless person clinging to Gamzee. Gamzee doesn’t look happy as Karkat reaches up and grabs at one of Tavros’s horns, but lets it happen. Sollux sees Gamzee snarl when Karkat presses his mouth to Tavros’s, and blows. The glass vial sits cold between Sollux’s fingers as he watches Tavros’s eyes open wide and his skin seems to bloom with color. 

“Gamzee,” he pants when Karkat pulls away. His voice is high, confused. He paws at him, face wild.

“There you are my motherfucker,” Gamzee says as he wraps his arms around Tavros. “Let’s go home.” He doesn’t say goodbye, just disappears.

“Rude,” Sollux says almost in unison with Karkat. 

Karkat gives him something akin to a smirk. “I think I might kind of like you like this,” he says as he wraps an arm around Sollux’s waist. Karkat sniffs at him and gives a disappointed sigh. “Though you’re just not doing it for me right now.” 

Sollux doesn’t do much more than jolt when the world melts down around them and repaints into his bathroom. He bites one of his tongues on the landing, and notes that there is no pain in the other. That’s cool, he guesses.

“Better get going,” Karkat says as he pushes a kiss to Sollux’s shoulder. “Don’t want to keep your brother waiting, and I need to go sleep off that meal. Thanks for cooking.” He nips at Sollux’s collarbone, and just the muscle jumps at the slight pain.

Sollux doesn’t respond, just stares at the door. He doesn’t react when Karkat disappears with an annoyed grunt, or when he hears his father calling. Instead he looks into the mirror and sees the blood smeared over his body. He should shower. 

Setting the vial down, he turns the water on, steps in without waiting, and washes his body with the same disinterest as a mortician preparing a corpse.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry, I am not dead, and the story is not dropped. I just had a weird couple of months with a shit ton of traveling and more stress than I thought possible at my job. It isn't over yet, seeing as three days after I post this I will be in a car headed for Florida for a week, and then more lovely stress from work when I get back.
> 
> I hope this chapter was worth the wait guys, and I am praying I can get the fifth chapter out in a much more timely manner. Thanks to everyone who is still reading through these side stories as we make our way to the big one. I promise you, I'll make it worth the word count.
> 
> As always, a shout out to all my wonderful Betas. You guys save my ass daily.

Sollux’s father is waiting outside the door when Sollux comes out of the shower.

“Where have you been?!” Simon seethes as he grabs Sollux by the arm. He is disheveled, dirty, like he’s been running through the woods. Sollux can smell alcohol, strong and acrid on Simon’s breath, as well. His father has never really drunk before, maybe on special occasions, but even then, it has never been much. Sollux's brain tells him that his father smelling like a bar should bother him, but he doesn't even feel a ripple of discomfort. The only discomfort he feels is in his arm.

“Hell,” Sollux responds simply as he tries to pull his arm away. It’s not like his father will believe him. He’ll think it is something cryptic. That’s fine by Sollux, because he doesn’t really have the creativity to make up a lie right now. 

“Don’t you FUCKING get smart with me!” Simon yells as he grips Sollux’s arm harder. Sollux stops, cocks his head, and blinks at him. It has been awhile since his father’s voice has reached that decibel. “I’ve been searching for you for _hours_!” Simon continues, voice still loud. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? No call, no sign of where you’ve been, just your room torn all to hell and you nowhere to be found. Where were you!?”

“I told you already,” Sollux replies evenly. It makes his father’s face twist, and his brain quickly tries to think of something believable, because his father is not budging, and Sollux needs to leave. The sooner he can get Mituna the vial, the better. “I couldn’t thtay in my room any more, it was like being in hell,” he tells him. “I went walking. You were with Mituna, I didn’t think you were coming back.” There, that should suffice. 

“And let me guess, you forgot your phone,” his father bites out.

“No, I broke that yesterday,” Sollux replies. His father gives him an incredulous look that Sollux barely registers. There is a chill in the air and his skin is becoming goose flesh. A shirt and pants would be useful; maybe something to stop the gnawing that is steadily growing in his stomach. His mind may not remember the last time he ate, but his stomach does.

“I want you to-” his father starts, voice low, almost dangerous sounding. Sollux cuts in, his tone bland.

“I need to go,” he tells his father as stray water droplets drip from his hair and onto his skin. It reminds him of blood on his chest. That hadn’t been nice. He needs to get dressed so that isn’t a thought anymore. He tries to step away again.

“Oh no you don’t,” Simon bites out and jerks Sollux back. “You are staying here, with me, and we are going to clean up that shit storm you call a room before your aunts and uncles start arriving.”

“No,” Sollux says. “I’m going to go thee Mituna with Latula and TZ,” Sollux tells him, voice monotone. “Now, let go, you’re hurting my arm.” 

Simon looks in surprise at the hand still around Sollux’s arm. “I-” he starts before letting go. Simon looks confused, almost scared. Briefly Sollux thinks that his father may be off his meds, too; like father like son and all that. Then again, it could always be the booze. Whatever causes the swing, it makes Simon suddenly crumple.

“Sollux,” he starts in a choked voice, laid low with emotions that Sollux can’t even wish to feel in his current state. “I-I'm sorry. I didn't-” The phone suddenly goes off, cutting his father short. They stand in the hallway, looking at one another as tears begin to fill his father’s eyes and shower water is blinked from Sollux’s. 

The machine picks up the call, and the family message machine filters down the hall; Sollux’s mother’s light voice floats to them. “Hi, you’ve reached Simon, Martina, and the boys. You know what to do.” There is a beep, and then what sounds like a pre-recorded message plays.

“Attention Alternia High School Students,” it starts. “This is a mass voice message to announce that school will be canceled today, November first. Enjoy your three day weekend, and don’t eat too much candy. Classes will resume Monday, November 4th.” There is a beep, and the message cuts off. Sollux goes to leave.

“Sollux,” he father tries to start again, voice tired, full of things too heavy to be carried by breath. 

Sollux doesn’t stay to listen. He, instead, walks into his room and shuts the door behind him. He doesn’t need sentiment, he needs results. He also needs clothing, food, and water. 

Simon is down at the kitchen table when Sollux finally leaves his room. It had been hard to find clothing that wasn’t torn or littered with glass, but he had managed to find an intact hoodie, some jeans that weren’t horrible, and an undershirt that had been left in a drawer. Personally, he couldn’t care less about his appearance, but his rationality makes it clear that if he shows up looking like hell, they may not let him see Mituna. This way, he looks presentable, at least. His father looks anything but. There is an almost finished bottle of American Honey on the table, the house phone is gently droaning with half a number punched in, and his father is asleep. Or possibly blacked out. Sollux’s isn’t sure and doesn’t care to find out.

Sollux walks past him, goes to the cupboard, and grabs a granola bar. He looks at his father for a moment as he chews. He tilts his head as his brain tries to figure out the information he is acquiring. There are still tears on his cheeks, his face is slack, his eyes have bags beneath them, his clothing looks looser, rumpled, and Sollux’s brain clicks as to what has changed. His father looks young like this. 

“I’ll bring him back, Dad,” Sollux states after he swallows his food. There is no need to speak, but comforting is something his brain believes he should be doing right now, at least, it thinks that’s what he should do. Not that it matters. There is no response. 

Sollux pours himself a large glass of water, drinks half, and sets the rest on the table. “Drink it, or you’ll get a hangover,” he tells Simon before he goes to leave. Behind him he hears a sound, though he can’t tell if it is a groan or a sob. He doesn’t much care to find out.

\-------------------------------

The speed limit is 65, and 65 is what Sollux does. The little needle holds steady as he drives himself to the hospital. Mituna’s prescription sunglasses, which had sat untouched in the glovebox for months, are now on his nose. They are a little too weak, but they will work for now. The vial he was given sits in his pocket. It is a thin, two inch, icy spot since the glass refuses to absorb his body heat. It will wake up Mituna. That thought makes something jump, just behind Sollux’s heart, but he doesn’t focus on it. It is too small to focus on. Why would he focus on something like that? He is driving, and driving takes concentration. 

He focusses on the road.

The hospital staff doesn’t bother him as he walks through the halls, even if he is an hour early for visiting hours. Some of them look away, others offer sad smiles; he does nothing back. Mituna is waiting for him, that is all that matters. He has kept his side of the deal, and now he is getting his brother back.

The room smells like decaying flowers when he enters. The orchids should have been removed by now, yet they sit with withered stems and their petals scattered around them in curled, brown lumps. Even the Eyebright has turned into sagging lumps above the dark, shallow soil it was planted in. Sollux ignores it and goes straight to his brother. 

Mituna’s body lays perfectly still. There is no movement, no tremors, and even his breathing seems muted. If not for the steady, but slow, beep of the machines around them, Sollux would have thought Mituna was already gone.

The vial comes out of his pocket, and Sollux stares into the shiny, dark glass. Spit, tears, snot, blood. Four to choose from, or really three. He can assume that something is going to happen when he fills this vial, not that it matters, though he has to think about this. Blood is a no go, especially with Gamzee’s warning. Snot would take too long to collect; tears could prove difficult, but not impossible; and spit would be the easiest by far. Sollux’s split tongues wriggle against each other.

Spit would be faster, but far less sanitary. He hasn’t brushed his teeth for a while, and the human mouth is a breeding ground for bacteria. That, and he’s had two different demon tongues in his mouth recently. Something about the chance of there being any trace of demon saliva left doesn’t sit well with him, leaving him with only one option; tears. Though, how to get them? 

Hurting himself could work, but, being in a hospital, causing himself damage could cause more problems than results; plus, pain may not even get him to cry. Emotions could possibly bring tears, but he doesn’t have those right now. Outside stimuli? Well, that could work. 

Sollux slips off his glasses, turns to the small pot of eyebright, takes his index finger, and dips it into the pot. A smattering of dirt particles coat his finger. They should do the job. With one hand he positions the vial beneath his left eye, with the dirt coated finger, he begins to poke at the white flesh closest to a tear duct. Immediately his eye tries to shut, but he forces it to just blink. Tears come forth to try and wash out the dirt.

Tears start to drip into the vial. After a few moments, it becomes almost a trickle, flowing into the glass and filling it drop by drop. It makes him sniffle as his nose starts to run as well. He thinks of possibly mixing the two, but that wasn’t an option, so he sticks with his eye. Sollux doesn’t know how much he will need, so he does as much as he can before his eyesight becomes blurry and he feels like he may cause some sort of damage.

The glass comes away from his cheek when the last of the dirt is washed out. He looks at the liquid inside the vial, and is content with how full it is. It's just over halfway, but something tells him he won't need much. Despite that knowledge, Sollux’s mind can’t quite figure out how this is going to work, but he finds no curiosity to wonder. He simply moves to do it. 

“Sollux, why the hell haven’t you been checking your phone!?” The words interrupt him as he reaches for Mituna’s respiration mask.

Sollux pauses, and turns his head to find Latula in the doorway. She has bags under her eyes, and the whites are still pinkish. It isn’t hard to tell that she’s been crying. She’s also early. Oh well.

“Broke it,” is what Sollux replies with.

“Yeah, well, what about your home phone!?” Latula asks as she strides towards him. Anger, worry, sorrow; they fight for dominance on her face. “You and your father forget how that works? I’ve been calling it all morning! Finally gave up and came here,” she huffs.

Sollux shrugs. “He’th thleeping off a hangover, and I’ve been buthy.”

Latula looks a bit surprised at the news.“ Oh,” she says, voice dropping a little. “Well...what have you been busy with?” She still sounds annoyed, but the anger drips at least. 

“This,” Sollux says as he holds the vial.

Latula looks at it with curiosity. “The hell is that?” she asks.

“Healing tonic,” Sollux tells her, his brain working to come up with something. 

His heart stays steady as Latula takes the vial from him. She puts it to the light, looks it over, takes a sniff, and suddenly sneezes. Latula gives a slight glare at the rotting flowers in the room while she rubs at her nose with the back of her hand and returns the vial. “What is that stuff?" she asks as he takes it. "I just smell salt.”

Sollux shrugs. “It’s jutht tears and dirt,” he tells her as he hold the icy glass.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” she deadpans. “And the vial?” she asks him.

“Something I found,” he tells her. “I washed it out,” he adds when she eyes the vial again. “I promise, it’s not going to hurt him.”

“Sollux,” she says gently as he goes to remove the mask again. “Do you really think that’s going to help?”

Sollux shrugs. “Last ditch effort,” he tells her as he lifts the mask up. 

“Yeah, well…” Latula looks at Sollux, then at Mituna, and sighs. She’s tired, it radiates off of her. “Okay,” she tells him as she pushes up her glasses and rubs at her eyes. “Just...maybe we should wait on that until Terezi gets here, or ask a nurse to do that." She doesn't believe it will work, he knows she doesn't, and he doesn't care. He knows it will, because after the shit he's been through, there is no other option but to believe.

Sollux doesn't reply as Mituna’s chest stops rising without the pressure from the respirator. Sollux works quickly to push the tubes in his brother’s mouth to the side. As soon as there is room, he touches the vial to Mituna’s lips, tips it upwards, and watches his tears go down into Mituna’s mouth. As soon as he pulls back, Sollux sees Mituna’s throat move, like he’s swallowing. 

The pain in his eye starts the second the movement stops. It is a cold burn that send to shot of pain back towards his brain, blurring his vision and makes his head ache. He winces, and gives a whine of discomfort, as the pain sits in his socket. Latula lets out a cry.

“What the fuck!?” Latula screams behind him, and Sollux turns to look at her with his one good eye. Her nose is bleeding. It's more gushing actually, and Latula's teal shirt is turning dark with blood. Sollux blinks rapidly as he looks at Latula, trying to clear his left eye, but finds that his vision is getting darker, not better. Something warm and sticky streams over his cheek.

“Latula!” he hears from the hall, and a second later Terezi is in the room. Her eyes are wide behind her glasses as she looks in her sister’s general direction. “What’s wrong?” she asks as she rushes forwards, cane out and searching. “Latula, what's going on?!” Terezi grabs her sobbing sister as Latula pitches herself towards Terezi. As soon as Terezi touches her, she let's out a strangled sound as her hands feel the blood. "Help!" Terezi screams as she turns to the hall. "Help us!"

Sollux turns away from them and instead watches his brother. Mituna’s heart rate is up, his body is shuddering, and Sollux sees something shift. He sees it with his left eye. He sees it in the growing dark.

There are two shapes, and one is thrashing above Mituna, pulling at the second. At least he thinks it is over Mituna, the overlay of what he sees normally in his right eye makes it hard to figure out what is going on in the left. Sollux closes his right eye, and watches with the left. It throbs and burns, but he keeps it open. The thing above his brother seems darker than any shade of black, looks larger than possible and compact all at once. The second shape is smaller, much smaller, and seems to be slowly disappearing. It is thrashing, pulling, and Sollux’s can't tell if it is fighting off the other shadow or grabbing at it. It doesn’t make much difference, it seems, because it is disappearing quickly.

The second it disappears, the larger shadow jerks back; there is a choked gasp, and Sollux opens his good eye. Mituna is sitting straight up in bed. He looks wild as he starts thrashing. He gasps and retches around the tubes in his mouth as his eyes dart the room, blind in his panic. Mituna tries to pull a tube out, and Sollux hears him choke.

“Mituna,” he hears Latula say, voice heavy with pain and disbelief. There are heavy footsteps outside as a nurse rushes in.

“Oh my god,” Sollux hears the nurse say as he looks at his brother with his one good eye. “He’s awake. Oh my god.” She turns towards Sollux, Terezi, and Latula, jerks back, and lets out a startled sound. “Holy shit,” she says and Sollux can hear more people come in.

“Get them out of here,” one of them says. Sollux watches as they swarm Mituna, saying soothing things as they try to help get the tubes out of his throat and keep him from yanking out his IV. Sollux takes a step forward, but stern hands stop him.

“Come on,” a woman says as she pulls Sollux out of the room; Terezi and Latula being lead out by another nurse. Sollux lets her take him, but he keeps staring at Mituna, watches as his brothers eyes look around, as he thrashes. When Mituna’s eyes finally fall on Sollux, Mituna freezes. His chest is heaving, his eyes are wide, and he lets out the most strangled syllable Sollux has ever heard.

“No.”

It rings through Sollux’s ears, mixes into his brain, and then shoots down into his stomach. In his dark eye he sees the other shadow shift and look towards him. 

Sollux is pulled backwards as Terezi stands frozen next to the door. Latula is already halfway down the hall with the other nurse, a trail of blood droplets in her wake. Terezi is standing in them.

Terezi doesn’t move as Sollux is pulled after Latula. Her gaze stays focused at the foot of Mituna’s bed. She gives a sniff. “Sollux, what is that smell?” she asks softly. Her voice is shaking. He’s never heard it do that before.

Sollux doesn’t answer as he catches one last glimpse of Mituna before the door closes. He can still see the shadow through the door. 

“Sollux?” she asks again as she starts to follow him down the hall, cane clicking. His brain registers that she’s wearing a backpack. There is a wooden corner sticking out of the side. They won't be needing that anymore.

Sollux doesn’t respond to her as he is pulled into a room opposite Latula.

“Sollux, what did you do?” Terezi asks as she stands in the threshold. Her eyes are wide, her face is pale, and her cane is shaking.

His voice sounds as hollow as he feels when he speaks. “I made a deal.” 

The nurse closes the door. 

Sollux can still see Terezi on the otherside.

\------

Mituna is alive, and Sollux is stuck in a small room waiting for his father to arrive.

He should want to see Mituna, to run to him, but Sollux is content to have his eye looked at. The nurse has already wiped the blood from around his eye and given a brief examination. She has pulled out an otoscope, and it takes her only a few minutes to tell him that he no longer has a working eye. The blood vessels have burst and the cornea has withered in a way that she has never seen before. 

Then Mituna’s doctor, Dr. Sleuth, comes and takes over. He runs the same tests, looks in both of Sollux’s eyes, and even sticks a needle into the now blind one. He has tried to drain the blood, possibly make it so that Sollux could see something, but it quickly became clear that the blood is not the problem. The liquid in his eye has turned as dark as tar.

“I-I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dr. Sleuth says as he looks at the eyeball through his otoscope. “Your entire cornea, your iris, has turned...dark. I thought it was the blood but…” he trails off. He moves something over the eye, and Sollux just sits there. “And there is no response to any stimuli. It’s almost as if the nerve has just...shut off.” The doctor says it almost to himself, his voice full of awe.

Sollux says nothing to that, just sits staring at the dark thing in the room. It had followed him a few moments after he had been brought into the room. He had been able to track it with his left eye long before it had come through the door. It had materialized into view almost half way down the hall. Even when he closes the lid of his left eye, he can see it. It just stands there in the corner, facing him.

“Dr. Sleuth,” comes a nurse from the door. “Mr. Captor is here.”

“I’ll be right there,” Dr. Sleuth says quickly before standing. “But I’m afraid you’re going to be in this room for a little while, Sollux. I need to tell your father about your brother and, well, about you as well. I think we’ll be needing to keep you here overnight, make sure this isn’t the start of something worse.”

“What about Mituna?” Sollux asks.

Dr. Sleuth gives him a gentle smile. “He’s getting an MRI and CT scan right now. They’ll tell us what’s going on, but he’s going to be stuck here a few days longer, too. He may need some physical therapy as well, seeing as he hasn’t walked in a couple of months.” 

Sollux nods as he stares past the doctor. “So he’ll be okay?” he asks him. 

“I don’t know,” Dr. Sleuth replies. “But I am hopeful.”

Sollux doesn’t watch him leave, just listens as the door opens and shuts. Watching him would require Sollux to turn, and he doesn’t want to take his eye off whatever this _thing_ is.

Deep inside him something shifts uncomfortably. With his left forefinger, he starts to pick at his thumb’s nail bed.

“What do you want?” he asks finally after the shadow doesn’t move for a while. The thing shifts and his hair stands on end. He can hear something, something very faint. He closes his eyes, strains his ears, and hears just the lightest of whispers. The shadow shifts again, agitated, and the whispers get quicker. They are like a scratching behind his left eye, subtle static that grates on his nerves.

“I can’t understand you,” he says as he opens his eyes again. “What-” It rushes him. Sollux jolts back a bit and watches the shadow. This close he can make out...something. What is it? A face? A sneer? 

The whispering inside his skull continues, urgently, angrily, but he can’t understand what it is saying. A pressure grows behind his eye, and the shadow becomes clearer. He shuts his right eye, stares hard with the left, and listens. He feels his teeth itch as his brain seems to vibrate as the nonsensical whispers raise in volume but not in clarity. Before him is a face, he knows it’s a face. His brain can see it’s shape now, tries to add words to the ghost of a mouth, give the anger some form. He’s almost got it, almost-

“Sollux?” Terezi’s voice cuts into the room and the whispering stops. The shadow recedes back against the wall.

Sollux turns his head towards Terezi as she slips through the door. There are two of her. The one in his right eye, and the faintest vision of her in his left. She shuts the door behind her, and locks it.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to do-”

“I just watched a doctor remove the entire lining of my sisters sinus cavity and nose, so I am going to do what I damn well please,” Terezi cuts in harshly. “For the first time in my life I was happy I couldn’t _see_ what was happening. Watching them pull a shadow out of her head and then pack it full of white was bad enough without the details,” she hisses at him. 

“That doesn’t make any-”

“Of course it doesn’t make sense, because her fucking sinus cavity has frost bite!” Terezi barks at him. “And you want to know the really weird thing, besides the fact that she has fucking _frost bite_?” Terezi asks him.

Sollux just blinks at her. There is a sense of pressure in his left eye as the Terezi he sees in the dark shifts. Terezi continues speaking.

“It’s only the lining of her sinuses and her nose. The bone, the skin, that’s all fine,” Terezi says, and Sollux notes the barest amount of moisture making its way down her cheek. “But, you know what, the doctor doesn’t think she’s ever going to smell again. No more pumpkin spice candles, no more waking up to the smell of bacon, let alone being able to taste it right anymore." Her voice is bordering on hysterics. “And she reeks! She smells half rotten, like a sour freezer. And you,” she points at him. “I can’t even smell you anymore. All you smell like is charcoal that’s been rolled in dry ice!” Her chest heaves. “And Mituna, I can’t even explain to you what Mituna smells like!"

Sollux doesn’t know what to say to that. He couldn't even guess at what Mituna smells like, but he can at least be sure it isn't pleasant. Mituna isn’t something his brain really wants to try and process right now, though. He goes with what could be a less problematic conversation. “Is she going to be okay?” Sollux asks as he pushes the nail of his forefinger into his thumb bed. 

“She’ll live,” Terezi says softly as she reaches up and quickly wipes the few tears that had escaped her eyes onto her fingers. “Though they have her on some pretty strong painkillers right now. The entire inner skin of her nose is gone, and while the bleeding finally fucking stopped, she’s going to have her face packed with gauze for at least another one or two weeks.”

Sollux feels something loosen inside him, very minutely. He closes his eyes, and watches her and the shadow as he breathes.

“And let me guess,” Terezi adds as she stands holding her cane in front of him. “That eye of yours, done in by frost bite.” 

Sollux shrugs. “They don’t know what it is,” Sollux replies. “The doctor just thays my cornea looks dark.”

 

He sees her move behind his left eye, and doesn’t try and stop her. Terezi grabs his face, forces him to look straight at her, and Sollux opens his eyes without being asked. She lifts up her glasses, and for the first time in a long time, Sollux looks her in the eye. The vibrant green of her iris is tinged in the lightest of red as her pupils stay blown wide. She stares at his left eye, and he stares through her at the thing against the wall. 

“That is the ugliest shade of red I’ve ever seen,” she says as she stares hard at the eye.

"Huh, Dr. Sleuth jutht thaid it was dark," he murmurs with disinterest.

Terezi looks at him oddly. “Since when have you been able to say Dr. Sleuth's name without lisping?” she asks. Terezi’s leans down and sniffs at his mouth. “What the fuck,” she murmurs and shifts her grip from the side of his head to his chin. Sollux’s mouth opens when she gives a squeeze, and his tongues lay still.

“Talk,” Terezi tells him as she stares intently at his mouth, her face so close he can’t even fully see it anymore. “Say, she sells seashells by the sea shore.”

Sollux speaks. “She thells sea shells by the thea shore,” he says slowly, his new tongues wagging in his mouth. Some of the s sounds ring true, and he swallows. Looks like Karkat got rid of part of his lisp after all.

Sollux doesn’t expect her to shove a finger in his mouth. He chokes a little as his tongues flail. Her finger quickly comes out. “What the hell happened to your tongue?!” Terezie snaps as she backs up.

Sollux shrugs. 

“No, you’re not getting away with that,” Terezi sneers as she wipes her hand on her jeans. “That entire tongue twister used to be nothing but one big ‘th’ sound and now you can say more than half of it? How the hell did your tongue get split in half?”

She glares at him when he gives her another shrug. “Something has put you so far off balance you don’t even smell human anymore, my sister reeks of decay, and Mituna shouldn’t be fully conscious and talking to the doctors right now, but should be singing a flatline!” She says it with bared teeth, and Sollux just watches. “And according to you, Sollux," she continues. "It’s all because you made a deal. A deal that you and my sister are paying for.” Even without his glasses Sollux can see how deep her scowl is. “So, Sollux,” she grits out. “Why don’t you tell me just what she went halfsies on with you?”

“I don’t know what happened,” Sollux says truthfully. “I went to wake Mituna up, she arrived earlier than I thought, looked at my vial, then I gave Mituna the tears and…” he pauses. No, that wasn’t all that had happened. “She thneezed on the vial,” is what comes out, and Terezi’s scowl gets deeper. The lines look almost carved into her blurry face.

“What vial?” Terezi asks him. 

Sollux reaches into his pocket and brings it out. “This,” he tells her as he holds it up. The shadow behind Terezi twitches, and Terezi herself glares down at the thing. She doesn’t touch it, and the Terezi in his left eye seems to shrink back.

“And what is ‘this’?” she asks him.

Sollux drops his hand into his lap. “It’s what woke up Mituna,” Sollux replies as he rolls it in his fingers. It is still icy cold. “All I had to do was fill it with something. Tears, blood, thnot, spit,” his brain clicks. “She thneezed on it,” he tells Terezi. “Some of her thnot must have gotten inside.”

“And who gave you that vial?” Terezi asks him sharply. 

He blinks at her. Well, there’s no reason to lie. “Karkat,” he tells her.

She grits her teeth. “So you did know that name,” she bites out. Sollux nods, and she looks like she wants to hit him with her cane. “And what did you give him? Your soul? Mituna’s?”

“My emotions.” It comes out evenly. 

“Your what?!” She snaps. Both of her visages go bowstring tuat. 

“They’ll come back,” he says simply. “They might just take a while.”

Terezi looks like she wants to snap something else at him, to scream and rave and rant, but instead she tightens her hands on her cane and talks through her teeth. “And he gave you the vial to wake up Mituna?”

Sollux nods.

“And Latula had no idea what it was?” Terezi asks him, voice sharp.

He shakes his head. “No, she didn’t,” he tells her. “She just thought I was having a breakdown, feeding him my tears out of an old bottle.”

Terezi stands there for a moment, brain processing before she speaks again. “So you gave Karkat your emotions, and he went and made you that little vial?” Terezi asks, voice starting to even out.

Sollux shakes his head. “No,” he says. Terezi stares at him. “Karkat got it from Gamzee.”   
The shadow behind Terezi thrashes hard, rushes him, drops back and does it again. He can feel scratching in his skull.

“Who the fuck is Gamzee? You made a deal with two of them?” Her voice isn't so even anymore. 

Sollux looks more at the shadow than Terezi as he replies. “Karkat made the deal with me to save Mituna, and then he made a deal with Gamzee for the vial,” Sollux corrects. “I never made a deal with Gamzee.” The shadow seems to calm down.

“Yeah, right.” Terezi murmurs as she sniffs the air. “Is that who I’m smelling?” she asks, turning slowly. “Is he the burnt, the icey, or the rotten smell.”

Sollux shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe one of those smells is the shadow.”

Terezi freezes. “Shadow?” she asks as she turns her head back to him.

Sollux points to the corner where the shadow has receded. It looks like it is vibrating, and it makes the left side of his head ache. “It was with Mituna,” he tells her. “Sitting on his chest, but I don’t think it’s like Gamzee or Karkat.”

Terezi looks at the corner, and then steps tentatively towards the shadow. She sniffs, taps with her cane, and sticks out her tongue. In his left eye, Sollux can see Terezi shift around, reach out towards the corner with something that isn't an arm. The shadow makes a movement, and Terezi scuttles back. 

“What is it?” Sollux asks her as she grips her cane tight.

She doesn’t answer.

“TZ, what-?” Sollux starts to ask again. If it is bad maybe he should ask to go to another room.

“Sollux,” she cuts in, voice small but urgent. “Out of which eye do you see it?”

Sollux is pretty sure she already knows which one, but he tells her anyways. "The red one."

Terezi stares at the corner Sollux had pointed to. She is stock still in his right eye and waivers in the other. A few moments pass before she speaks again. “I...I need to go make sure my sister’s okay,” she says softly.

Sollux cocks his head to the side. Her response doesn’t make sense. The shadow hasn’t done anything, why does she seem afraid?

“We’re not done talking about this,” she adds as she goes to the door. She quickly unlocks it, steps out, and shuts it behind her. Sollux finds himself sitting alone, following her shape down the hall outside until it blends into the black.

Something shifts just off to his side, and it is the only thing that warns him of another entity before fingers curl around the back of Sollux’s neck. The touch makes him jolt forwards, self preservation kicking in. “Someone’s jumpy.” Karkat’s voice is languid and annoyed. “Good fucking job giving everything away.”

“You never said I couldn’t talk about it,” Sollux responds as he turns to look at Karkat. The second his left eye lands on Karkat, Sollux shrinks back. His left eye sees...something. Something his brain doesn’t want to understand. He quickly looks down as his breathing rings ragged in his ears.

“Well, now I know which emotion has the smallest refractory period,” Karkat chuckles as he grabs Sollux by the face. Sollux lets out a horrified whine as Karkat looks at him. His eyes go wide as they try and take Karkat in, all of him, because there is so much there. He goes on forever, endless and hot; an image untranslatable in the human brain.

He can feel fingers around his left eye as Karkat looks it over. “You look like a fucking husky,” he tells him. “One blue eye, one blood red. Bet that thing is going to turn an ugly brown as soon as the blood settles." Karkat then digs his fingers into Sollux’s jaw and pulls down. Sollux’s tongues flail as he is forced to look at Karkat. He’s going to go mad if he keeps staring at him like this, he will, he knows it.

“That bitch figured it out quicker than I thought she would,” Karkat says as he watches the two tongues writhe. “Not that I really fucking care. She’s right, you do sound better with them like this. You taste better too.” Karkat leans forwards, one hand holding the back of Sollux’s head while the other forces his jaw open wider. Sollux’s mind spins. He can hear scratching again, sees something shift behind Karkat, and in a moment, Karkat is off of him and the shadow floats above him.

“What the fuck!” Karkat snarls from his new place on the floor. Sollux gasps as he curls onto the examination cot, fear filling all of the numbness inside him. He can hear the whispers again.

“He’s mine, fair and square, you can’t fucking touch me you pale faced bitch,” Karkat snaps. There are more whispers with no words. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I fuck up your quota? Daddy death going to be mad he didn’t get one little soul?” 

Sollux hears almost a scream, and covers his ears. The scream is in his head though, and he can’t drown out the rage. The anger pours through him, reminds his body and brain what it is, kindles something small and hot within the fear, and then races from him.

“Yeah, well not my problem. There was a deal made, 100% kosher. You’re not getting your hands on that playdough brained idiot for a long, long time.” Karkat is grinning when he says it, he seems to swell. Sollux’s mind tells him to look away, look at the shadow, at anything else but Karkat, so he does. The shadow is backing up.

“Now, what the fuck is your name? Damara?” Karkat asks as he moves forward. “Some reaper you are. Couldn’t drag one little soul off to the afterlife. You must really be losing your touch.” He’s grinning, Sollux can hear it. “You chase around a single soul for over two months, two, and you still couldn’t get the little fucker.” He sounds jovial, teasing, and it agitates the shadow as it twitches and jerks. “Why the fuck didn’t you just let him become a ghost? You could have just fucked off after a few hours and grabbed the rest of the deadbeats you're supposed to be picking up. How many people are still walking around because you got distracted?” he asks. “Gotta be in the low hundreds by now. You would think your boss would-” Karkat doesn’t get to finish.

The shadow swells and Karkat falls back. Sollux is filled with a fear more intense than he’s ever felt. It spreads through him, pulling at him, promising things that make him want to either run screaming or hurtle himself down into the shadow's cool darkness and never come back out. He feels himself sobbing, and what comes from his left eye is hot and sticky.

“Fuck you,” he hears Karkat snarling as this thing, Damara, pushes at him. “They’re ours now, no take backs. You don’t like the deal, take it up with our Lord, but I’m not losing to a pompous old bitch like you.” Sollux feels things whip up inside him; fear, rage, a silence so deep it is monstrous.

There are more words running about in his mind. “Hey, I can’t do shit about Tavros. He’s stuck down in hell playing fuck toy to Gamzee, but what does that matter? Dead is dead, and he had a fifty, fifty shot of ending up there, right? Besides, I didn’t make that deal. You’ll need to deal with Gamzee for that, not that you’ll get very far. He’s so blissed out on sex and pain I doubt he can hear much of anything but Tavros’s moans.”

More whispers filter into Sollux’s head, making him scratch at his skull. “What, me? I didn’t take the souls you idiot,” Karkat barks. “I haven’t done that shit in centuries. They aren’t worth the fucking time. So why don’t you fucking drop the bravado and I’ll tell you the whole deal. All you’re losing is a few years. In the end, you’ll get them both. They’ll be late, but you’ll have them.”

The rage drops, the fear spindles out, and Sollux lays feeling almost as numb as he had been in hell.

“Yeah, there you go, keep your fucking mood swings to yourself,” Karkat grumbles as the shadows backs away. “Now, kindly fuck off so that I can figure out what the fuck Gamzee’s little spell did. I- what’s so funny?” 

Sollux can hear laughing. High, mad laughter that sets each of his hairs on end.

“Don’t you fucking talk to me like that,” Karkat snarls. “The deal I made was sound, I didn’t fuck up, he did.” He points at Sollux. “I was...his eye? What about his eye?”

Karkat flashes over and grabs Sollux. He lets out a fear filled, airy sound as Karkat looks straight into his eye.

“It’s just a fucked up eye. What do you mean he can see me?” Karkat turns to the shadow. The laughter is receding. “Hey, you fucking babylonian whore, get back here. What do you mean he can see me?!”

The scratching in Sollux’s head goes silent, the shadow is gone, and he finds himself staring up into the bloody visage his brain tries so hard not to understand. 

“What did she mean, Sollux,” Karkat asks him as Sollux tries to block it out. Karkat shakes him, tries to keep Sollux looking at him. “Sollux, what the fuck did she mean!?”

Sollux can’t respond, his brain can’t take it. He has to protect himself, he can’t keep looking. Sollux’s eyes roll back, and unconsciousness claims him.

\------

Mituna is in front of him. Screaming at him.

“What were you thinking?!” His sibling cries. “Are you an idiot? I told you, I warned you!” He grabs something from the wall and throws it. They are in the hospital room, and Mituna’s gown flaps crazily as he screams.

“You fell right into his hands, how could, why-” he picks up the Eyebright with a cry and chucks it against the wall. The pot explodes into a cloud of dirt.

“Mituna,” is all Sollux can respond with as he watches his brother throw things, break them. 

Mituna tears at his hair and collapse back on the bed. “I was supposed to protect you,” he croaks. 

“What are you talking about?” Sollux asks. He can’t move, can’t really do anything. Everything about him feels heavy and slow.

Mituna sits on the bed and runs the back of his hand under his nose. “I’m a shitty big brother,” he mumbles.

“No, Mituna, you’re not,” Sollux says as he forces himself to move forwards. “You’re not shitty, you were just asleep. Now you’re awake, you’re fi-”

“I’m not _fine_ , Sollux.” His tone makes Sollux’s heart hurt. “All you have to be is awake to figure that out.”

“Awake?” Sollux asks as he reaches for Mituna. His hand goes straight through his big brother, and he jerks it back.

“Just fucking open your eyes already,” Mituna tells him, voice tired. He lifts his head, and both of his eyes look purely white and dull. “You’ll see.”

Sollux jerks awake with a gasp. Around him there is the beeping of machines, the smell of disinfectant, and beneath it all is the stench of rotting flowers. With jerky motions, he looks around the room, sees reality over blackness,and when he finally turns to his left, he finds Mituna in a bed next to him. There are no respiration tubes in his mouth, no feeding tube coming from his stomach. Sollux’s heart rate beeps in his ears, faster than Mituna’s. 

“Tuna?” he asks softly as he shifts in the hospital bed. “Tuna?’

Mituna shifts and sits up slowly, blinks blearily at Sollux, and yawns. “Dream bad,” he says in a hoarse voice.

Sollux blinks at him. “What?”

Mituna yawns again before he replies. “F-fucking, dream, bad, bad dream.” His voice is stilted and halting. In Sollux’s head he can hear some sort of echo. Mituna pauses before he tries to talk again. "No, no you, dead. Me…” he stops and looks hard at Sollux, his face screwing up in confusion, frustration, and then fear. There is a movement in Sollux's left eye. “Bad. Deal.” The words are fear filled and sharp in Sollux’s heart. “Bad, deal,” he repeats again. “Bad deal, bad deal, bad deal!” his voice raises high and hysterical as he stare at Sollux. The shape in his left eye thrashes as Mituna screams.

“Mituna,” he says as he hears movement outside. Fear is slowly seeping through him, a spark of rage, it’s all he can feel. “I did it for you, Tuna, you’re back, yo-”

“BAD, DEAL!” Mituna screams and his voice breaks. He grabs the water glass next to him and flings it at Sollux. It misses by a wide arch, but Sollux still shrinks back.

Mituna’s face falls for a moment before his hands come up and smash against his skull. “Bad,” he says as the nurse and their parents come in. “Bad, bad, stuck. Fucking. Bad.” 

“Mituna,” Sollux says as he tries to get up. “Mituna, stop. Don’t, I-” He watches a nurse pull out a syringe. “No, don’t put him back to thleep! Please, don’t.”

“It’s for his own safety,” the nurse tells Sollux as his parents help hold Mituna down. “It won’t hurt him.” 

Sollux can hear his mother’s voice as the nurse prepares the syringe. It is soft compared to the fear on her face, matching only the way her hands caress Mituna more than restrain. They are more than enough to stop Mituna’s weakened limbs.

“No,” Sollux says as the ember in his belly grows. “No, don’t you- Don’t you fucking put him back to thleep!” He’s not sure what he grabs, but it flies true, and knocks into the side of the nurses head. She stumbles, and stands stunned for a moment as Sollux goes to get up, but his father is there.

“Lay down,” he demands as Sollux pushes at him. Mituna is still yelling ‘bad’ as he thrashes weakly. Without the use of his fists, Mituna starts throwing his head back against the pillows as his mother and the nurse get his hands and feet into some restraints. Sollux can see Mituna in his left eye, thrashing and fighting harder than his body. Sollux has to stop that, he’s going to hurt himself if he keeps doing that.

“Let go,” Sollux screams. “Let go. Tuna, Tuna stop! Stop it, they’ll put you back to thleep. Stop-”

Mituna looks at him and screams. It is a sound that makes everyone in the room flinch. The movement Sollux catches in his blind eye makes him fall back. The nurse uses the moment to get the needle in the IV.

“NO!” Sollux cries out as he surges and pushes his father back. His mother replaces him, soft hands tight as she tries to push Sollux back. Her brown eyes, Mituna’s eyes, stare at him as soft words try and caress him. He doesn’t hear them, he kicks at her. Simon catches his legs.

“I’ll have to sedate him too,” he hears the nurse say as she comes around the side of the bed.

“But he just woke up!” his mother cries, dismay in her voice.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Captor,” the nurse says as she makes her way around Sollux’s bed. 

_This little Husky needs to go down for a nap._ They aren’t her words, but Sollux still hears them. 

The needle goes into his IV, his hands and feet go into the restraints, and Sollux screams all the way down as he is dragged into the dark.

Mituna is there, waiting for him. “I told you,” he says meekly as they both float in oblivion.

Neither of them makes a move to touch the other, neither says a word. They just stay in the dark and listen to the beeping of their hearts; their rhythms in constant discord. The only other sound is Karkat's laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sits in the corner and cackles*


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I re-wrote the dialogue in this six times...six.

“Why can’t I just have Latula do this?” Sollux asks in annoyance as the tiny knife slips and adds another small cut to his thumb. The wood is going to be a pendant, the symbol on it similar to what’s on the bottom of Terezi’s cane. At least, he hopes it will be. He’s soldered things before, but soldering and carving are a hell of a lot different, and he’s not sure if it’s going to look quite right. He’s already fucked up two other blackthorn pendants. He’s really hoping he doesn’t do it again. This shit is getting expensive. 

“Because you have to have a hand in making it, especially if you're going to put your energy into it,” she tells him. "Otherwise it'll just be like that pendant I loaned you. It'll do some, but not what you need." 

Sollux notes the coolness of the heavy metal pendant against his chest. It’s kept Karkat from fucking with his emotions somewhat, makes it harder for him to feed on him, but it doesn’t keep him from doing much else.

"Then how does your cane work so well?"

“I carved the main rune in the bottom of my cane myself," she replies, voice tinged with pride. "Took forever, but I did it." She reaches to her side and touches her cane. 

“And the smaller thtuff on it?” Sollux asks as he looks at the outline of the image on the wood. There is the main rune, and then a series of smaller ones. They're the biggest pain in the ass. 

“Latula helped me,” she tells him as she stares upwards, her fingers tracing through a book in her lap. “Held my hand and kept it steady while I carved. ”

"Guess I'm on my own then,” Sollux grumbles. It’s been only a week, and Latula has refused to talk to him. He can’t blame her. She still has her sinus cavity packed, and, from what the doctors can tell with each change of gauze, it’s healing, but she will definitely never be able to smell again.

“Yep,” Terezi murmurs as she leans back on his bed. They lapse into silence.

Sollux reaches across his keyboard, an old one from the basement, and picks up a different knife from Terezi's collection of tools. His room is mostly whole now. He had cannibalized his old computer to help make his new one, had helped his dad fix the holes in his walls in silence, and had worked manically to clean the rest with his mother so he wouldn’t have to pay attention to the world around him for a day. He was given an old monitor from the basement, his mother had gotten him some new clothing, and his old sheets were so filled with glass that they had been thrown out. He’s not allowed to have plates in his room anymore. He can’t blame his parents for the new rule.

Sollux looks carefully at the outline on the wood and scratches away a little more with the finer tool. “So what am I inlaying this with?” he asks, voice brushing away the silence.

“Rhodonite, Honey Calcite, and Lapis,” Terezi tells him. “Same stuff we’re going to put in Mituna’s. He’s just going to have way more of the Honey Calcite than you.”

“Why those ones again?” He really doesn’t get this stone stuff, but, if it’s supposed to help, then he’s going to do it. 

”Rhodonite to balance your emotions, Lapis to help you get your gift under control, and the Honey Calcite for better decision making and healing,” Terezi tells him as her fingers keep moving.

“I wish you’d stop calling it a gift,” he grumbles. His eye has been interesting to get used to, not that he's really used to it. Some people stand out sharply, their shapes showing in the dark of his eye. Most, however, barely register. The ones he’s seen the most have been Terezi and Mituna. Latula has an image to her, but it is slight compared to the other two. Karkat though...Sollux still can't tell what he sees when he looks at Karkat. The pendant helps some, muting whatever it is, but his brain still can’t make any sense of it. He's been doing his best to keep his back to Karkat, but Karkat's been using that to his advantage. 

“Hey, seeing energy is rare, especially how you see it,” Terezi tells him. “Not as rare as me smelling it, but if you can see things like reapers, then it’s pretty damn strong.”

“We thtill don’t know for sure if it was a reaper or not,” Sollux replies as he turns to look at her. 

“When I tried to smell her, all I could smell was death, Sollux. And from what you’ve told me about Karkat and Damara’s little conversation, I think it’s safe to say that she is.” She closes her book. “Have you seen her lately?”

Sollux shakes his head. “No,” he sighs as he leans back and looks at Terezi. “And I don’t really care to.” Right now, Terezi is there in the dark. Far off behind her he can see something large shift and move; he sees blood. The image makes his hair stand on end, and he turns back to the pendant. He wants to carve as much as he can. Sooner he gets it done, the sooner he can keep Karkat away on his own.

“What time is it?” Terezi asks him after a few more minutes. She’s getting restless.

“Almost seven,” he tells her as he cuts into the wood a little deeper. She wants it carved out all the way through so that the jeweler can inlay the stone and have it showing on both sides. It’ll be expensive, but Sollux is more than happy to drop some money if it means being demon free for most of the month.

She scoots off the bed, stands, and stretches. “I need to get going,” she tells him when she drops her arms. “Arachnid told me she’d get online later tonight.”

“Yeah? What does the spider bitch want now?” he asks gruffly. Terezi sits down with a scowl just as he hopes. He can only send Karkat away three times, but Terezi can do it an infinite amount. As long as she’s around, he’s safe. Second she leaves, he’s free game. He’ll keep her talking as long as he can to keep her around. 

“Why do you call her that?” Terezi asks as she gives him a little glare.

“Her fucking thcreen name is ArachnidsGrip, what else am I supposed to call her?” Sollux asks before blowing away some shavings. “She hasn’t given you a name.”

Terezi shrugs. “Okay, good point.”

“What does she want?” Sollux asks again. Really, he doesn’t give a shit. This girl Terezi has been talking to sounds like bad news. They had started talking around the same time as Mituna’s accident, and, if not for Terezi being so consumed with the forums and ArachnidsGrip, she might have noticed what was going on with Mituna sooner. It’s not a sane reason to dislike ArachnidsGrip, but Sollux uses it. 

“She says that she’s found some spells that she wants to use to find Tavros.” Terezi doesn’t sound happy.

“She finally thay it was him?” Sollux asks in surprise. ArachnidsGrip hasn’t been very forthcoming with information, but she sure does ask a lot of questions.

Terezi sighs. “No, not yet. But who else could it be?” she asks him as she lays back. “Time line fits, and I don’t think demons make a habit of kidnapping humans, body and all.” Terezi pushes her hands up under her glasses and rubs at her eyes. “But I don’t know how to talk to her about it. It’s not like I can say, ‘Oh hey, my friend made a deal with a demon and gets dragged to hell once a month. He’s seen your friend down there. He has horns now’. Not sure that would go over too well.”

Sollux gives a dry chuckle. “Yeah, probably not.” He’s glad she’s started making jokes about the deal. During his time at the hospital, she had done nothing more than glare at him as she explained about pendants and warding. Now that they are actually doing things to try and beat Karkat at his own game, she seems more relaxed about the situation. He doubts she would be if she knew what Karkat’s been doing to him since he got out of the hospital. She thinks he reeks because of the deal. He's going to let her keep thinking that.

“So, do you think the spells will work?” Maybe they can find something that can break his deal in that book.

“I don’t doubt it,” Terezi says with a sigh. “But from what she’s told me, the thing sounds like black magic.”

Sollux pauses. “Why do you think that?”

“Because it’s saying stuff like, ‘Light this baby on fire and eat the ashes to take half their life’ and shit like that." She scrubs at her face again. “I’m scared for her to be honest. If she keeps fucking around with that stuff, she’s going to do something stupid. Or worse, attract some attention she doesn’t want.”

Silence filters between them, and Sollux lets it stay. Having something take notice of you is not a good thing, he knows that first hand. He drives the little carving knife in harder, and jumps when it comes out the otherside. “Thweet,” he says as he lifts the pendant up. Through the wood, there is a pinpoint of light.

“You’ll have to finish it tomorrow,” Terezi says as she stands. “I really need to get going. No offence, but I’m not big on walking home at night anymore.”

“But I’ve told you, the deal protects you. There’s no way that Karkat wou-”

“The deal doesn’t cover Gamzee,” Terezi cuts in as she puts her book into her backpack. “And it sounds like he’s going to want you and Karkat to keep on doing what you’re doing for a while. ”

Sollux sighs. He knows she’s right, he really does, but that doesn’t keep him from wanting to be selfish and keep her as late as he can.

“Here,” he says as he slides the carving bit back into its little case and sets the wood piece on top. “Don’t forget this.”

“Wasn’t going to,” Terezi says with a grin as she takes it. Terezi had pointed out something else that Sollux had forgotten to pay attention to. Karkat may not be able to harm his stuff, but that doesn’t mean he can’t steal it. 

Terezi takes the wood pendent and rubs it between her fingers. “Feels good so far,” she tells him. “One or two more days and you’ll have it. Then I can go get the stones set.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sollux murmurs as he hunches his shoulders. He can feel Karkat lurking closer.

If Terezi notices, she doesn’t say anything; just puts her backpack on and goes to leave. Sollux follows her. 

“So you’ll be back tomorrow?” he asks. 

“It’s a Saturday, so yeah,” Terezi says as she goes to open the door. “Though I don’t know when I’ll be over. This is going to be a long conversation tonight, I can smell it.” She shifts her backpack.

“Yeah, okay,” Sollux replies as he kicks gently at the floor. 

Terezi stands in the doorway a moment longer. “You can’t expect me to save you from this, Sollux,” she laments softly. 

He doesn’t respond, just watches her step out of the house with her stick straight out. She taps away from him, taking her protection. He hopes his parents will be home soon. It’s harder for Karkat to mess with him then. He doubts it though, they’ve been at the hospital almost constantly, helping Mituna as he adjusts. Sollux isn’t allowed to be in the room with him anymore. Mituna becomes too volatile. 

“You know, I’m starting to think you don’t want me around,” Karkat grumbles into Sollux’s ear. His arms are warm as they wrap around Sollux’s waist.

Sollux stares after Terezi for a moment, willing her to come back, to chase Karkat off. She doesn’t turn around. He shuts the door. “What do you want, Karkat?” he asks. He looks at him sideways, and while his left eye still sees something monstrous, it isn’t as bad. As he has been doing, he keeps his back to him, and tries to ignore the images that come with the hulking behemoth in the dark.

“I don’t really ‘want’ anything,” Karkat answers as they stand in the hallway. 

Sollux doesn’t believe it as Karkat rubs his nose between Sollux’s shoulder blades. 

“But I do ‘need’ to feel you around my dick.”

Sollux gives a snort. With him back on his pills, and the pendant in place, Karkat can’t elicit the same response he once had with such a comment. If anything, it makes Sollux more numb than horny.

“You know, between you and Gamzee, I think you’re more thex crazed than he is,” Sollux snickers as Karkat’s hands undo his belt.

“Yeah, well, when you don’t have it for a while you don’t want it and all that shit,” Karkat replies as he shoves Sollux’s pants down and forces him forwards. Sollux puts his hands up against the door, bracing himself as Karkat goes on his knees behind him. Karkat’s done this five out of the last seven nights. According to Karkat, it’s a much longer stretch of time for him in between, but Sollux doesn’t really care. He puts his forehead against the door as Karkat’s mouth descends on his backside. 

Sollux manages to stay mostly quiet as Karkat laps at his hole. His tongue is hot, and presses deep as Sollux closes his eyes and grits his teeth. Fingers follow suit, and with them muted whimpers. Saliva isn't lube. Karkat doesn't care. It's hard not to cry out when he slides in with only the barest amount of moisture to dull the pain; Sollux's tongues wrap together, and he manages to only whimper.

"Going to pull the stoic shit again?" Karkat seethes as he pushes Sollux up hard against the door. Sollux stays quiet. Fighting stirs up too many emotions. He'd rather take Karkat's dick and starve him than try and fight him and feed him.

“Come on, now,” Karkat grits out as he slides a hand under Sollux’s shirt. They are both panting as Karkat thrusts into him. “Why don’t you take this lump of junk off, and we can have some real fun.” Karkat’s fingers tap at the metal around Sollux’s neck. If he does, Sollux knows that Karkat will turn him into a whirlwind of emotions; high’s, lows, and everything in between; instead of the leveled out haze he is on the meds. 

“How about you move faster tho we can get this over with?” Sollux asks. His cock isn't even hard as he keeps his eyes focussed on the door and his hands on the panels.

There is a grunt of anger, and Sollux hisses as nails dig hard into his hips. “Smart ass,” Karkat snarls as he starts going harder. It hurts, really hurts, especially at the angle Karkat is at. Sollux grits his teeth as his tongues try to choke the pained sounds that slip out. 

“Here I am trying to make this good for you, give you a night like nothing anyone else could give you, and you tell me to fuck off,” Karkat pants. “Could make you really like this. Make it like the best wet dream you’ve ever fucking had. You liked when I did it before,” Karkat tells him as he yanks him backwards. 

Sollux lets out a little sound of pain and confusion as he is manhandled down onto the front hall floor. He finds himself looking at his mother's ornamental rug. He can see every strand as Karkat plunges back into him. “Poor little you was all alone, except for me,” Karkat laments. “I love you, Sollux, I’ll take care of you Sollux. Feed you your pills until you choke on them.” He thrusts in hard enough that Sollux has to let out a breathy sound of discomfort. “I want to taste your pleasure, and you give me indifference and pain. Shit, you may be even more fucked in the head when you're on those little white pills of yours.” Karkat leans over him, mouth pressing to his back. He’s too short to reach Sollux’s ear. “But maybe you like that,” he whispers. “They make you numb, like I do.” His voice is low as he speaks. “If that’s what you want, Sollux, I’ll give you a freebee. I’ll suck it all out. That way, when you’re brother comes walking through that door tonight, you won’t have to look at him and know that you’ve fucking broken him.”

Sollux gasps out something close to a sob. His teeth snap shut immediately. Mituna’s coming home tonight? They’re releasing him?

Karkat’s pants get louder as he keeps moving. “Yes,” he moans. “Poor little sheep who’s lost when he sleeps is coming back home just like you wanted,” Karkat says above him. “But when he comes home, he’ll be all alone, and no one out there’s going to find him.” Karkat chuckles. “Not even his little sheep dog.”

“Shut up,” Sollux bites out. 

“Or what?” Karkat asks as he suddenly goes slow. “You’ll fight back? Is your busted brother the only thing that gets a rise out of you anymore? Maybe there’s more than just brotherly love in that heart of yours.” Karkat sounds like he’s grinning. “We could bring him in one night, see if that can get your heart going more than dreaming a little dream would.”

Sollux grits his teeth and bows forwards. “You’re sick,” he manages. He wants to hit him, beat him, something. Instead he feels claws slide up his back. He feels a flicking motion behind his hairline, and something slides past his ears. His eyes go wide as he hears the chain hit the floor.

“You fuck-” he starts before he gasps at the hand on his cock. The stroking feels good, and Karkat’s behind him, shoving his shirt up and kissing at his back. 

“Shh, shh, just feel me,” Karkat says as he keeps his thrusts slow. “Let me make love to you.” Sollux gives a sharp sob at the words. He knows they aren’t right, but he can feel the bubble in his chest, the hopeful one that is just so warm and wonderful. “I can’t wait to taste you again,” Karkat says, voice soothing as he gains speed, careful to build Sollux’s orgasm as he moves. “Can’t wait to feel you inside me. Would you want to make love to me next time Sollux? We could have a picnic in the park, checkerboard cloth on the ground, sandwiches we made, and you could fuck me for desert.”

Sollux can see it, and part of him wants it. He wants that with Karkat. He loves Karkat, has before, can again. It makes him want to vomit all over the rug.

“I do, Sollux,” Karkat cooes. “I want you to fuck me raw and tell me you love me.” He builds speed with his hips, pushing them closer to orgasm. “Then I’ll bite out your tongues and taste the words all. The way. Down.” The last few words are accompanied by thrusts that push Sollux over an edge of pleasure most assuredly brought upon by Karkat. It rattles him as he splashes the threads of the carpet with his cum. Beneath his own moans, Sollux can hear Karkat take a deep whiff against his back before cumming inside him. Sollux can feel dirty heat move in deep, warming him from the inside out. 

Karkat pulls out as soon as he’s done, stands up, and Sollux collapses to the side without his hands for support. He hears Karkat’s pants zip up and clothing being shifted back into place. “Guess your bitch should have put you on a shorter leash,” Karkat says as he leans down to grab Sollux’s pendant. Sollux manages to get a hand around it before Karkat can. His emotions start to level out almost immediately. 

“First invocation,” he pants as he looks up at him. “Get the fuck out. ”

Karkat gives him a snarl, but he backs up. “Two left,” Karkat grumbles. “See you soon.” He disappears. Sollux wonders what that means, and has the sinking realization that he never clarified how long Karkat would have to leave him alone. It makes him want to sob. Instead, Sollux pulls the pendant tight to him. Fucking asshole had found a way to get it off of him without actually taking it off of him. “Damn it,” he bites out as he feels his eyes dampen. “No,” he says as he shakes his head and frantically wipes at his face. “Nope, get up,” he commands himself. 

On shaking legs, Sollux gets up and stumbles with his pants around his thighs. He pulls them up quickly, buttons them, and then turns back to the rug. There is a smattering of white on it. 

The neutrality of his medication and the medallion whisper on the outskirts of his mind, and his brain wills itself all the way numb. He goes to get a paper towel. He needs to clean up now. Mituna is coming home after all.

\--------

Sollux finds out quickly that Mituna’s violent reactions are not over. From the second Mituna walks through the door and sees Sollux, still damp from his shower, he starts shaking and screaming.

“Bad, b-bad deal,” Mituna chokes out, voice hoarse. He tries to sink back into the garage. 

“Shhh, honey. It’s just your brother. It’s okay, everything's okay,” Martina tries to tell him.

“Listen to your mother, Mituna,” Simon adds. “It’s okay, it’s just Sollux.”

Simon looks at Sollux, gives him a nod, and Sollux swallows. As slowly and calmly as he can, he starts to step forwards. Mituna reacts as if Sollux is trying to hit him.

“Wrong!” Mituna shrieks as he thrashes in their parents arms. “Y-you're wrong!”

“Please, Sollux, go upstairs,” his mother begs as her and Simon work to hold Mituna still and keep him from bolting back into the garage.

Sollux hesitates for only a moment before he turns on his heel and flies up the stairs. He stops when he enters his room. Up here he can’t go any further, nowhere at all. It’s just his windows and four walls. 

Out in the hall, he can hear his parents, and, when he turns towards them, he can see Mituna in his left eye. The sharp silhouette in the dark is shaking, thrashing, and looks almost like it is begging. Sollux goes closer to the door, eye watching close as he feels the itching pressure behind his eye. 

“Shh, Mituna, shh. It’s okay. You’re home now. Going to get to sleep in your own bed,” Sollux hears his mother say. 

“We kept it just like you had it before college,” his father adds. Sollux watches Mituna spasm in the dark. As carefully as he can, Sollux sticks his head out his door. Mituna is facing into his room, his face hidden by their father, but the movements in Sollux’s left eye don’t match the right. In the right, Mituna sags in his parents arms. In the left, it looks like he’s pleading with them. 

“Help,” comes softly from his mouth.

“We are helping, dear,” Martina says as she opens the door.

Mituna shakes his head in both views. “Not, help. Me, no…” he trails off, and the left slumps as much as the right.

“It’s okay honey,” Martina says as they move out of Sollux’s sight. “It’s going to be alright.”

Sollux goes to his desk chair and sits, all the while watching as Mituna is lead to the bed and made to sit down. Immediately, Mituna curls up on his side, and lays still. Sollux stares at the wall, watching, waiting. 

“Hey.” The word is gentle, but Sollux still jumps. He turns to find his father standing in the doorway. 

“Hey, Dad,” Sollux replies as he sits still in his chair. The two have only exchanged a handful of words since Mituna’s return. He expects his father to just say something simple and leave him be, but instead he walks in and closes the door.

On tired legs, Simon walks to the bed, and sits. His fingers ruffle together as he rests his elbows on his knees, and keeps his eyes on the floor. Behind Simon, Sollux watches the silhouette of his brother tremble as the gentle voice of his mother floats through the wall. He can’t see either of his parents with his left eye.

“You were right,” his father finally murmurs, voice quite. It’s almost a whisper. “You were right, Sollux. Your brother woke up.” The man rubs at his eyes, and Sollux knows that he is holding back tears. “Your mother and I were ready to give up, but you-” Simon lets out a little gasping breathe as he looks to the ceiling. “You saw something we couldn’t. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that somehow you were the one who brought your brother back,” he snivels, face breaking. He gets up suddenly, takes the few steps between him and Sollux, and bends down. 

Sollux doesn’t want the hug. It is too soft and awkward, and he can feel his father’s tears on his shoulder. “Thank you, Sollux,” he says softly. “I don’t know what you did, but thank you.” 

The bile is harsh on his tongue as his father squeezes him and then lets go. 

“Get some sleep,” Simon murmurs as he goes to the door. “We’ve got a long weekend ahead of us.”

Sollux manages to wait until his father closes the door to puke into his trash can. Through the wall, he sees Mituna sitting up in bed, watching him. Sollux sleeps with his back to his brother.

\---------

“Mituna,” Sollux calls as he walks through a hallway. It’s the same dream he’s had since he’d gotten home. He just walks, passing door after door, making turn after turn, but he never seems to get anywhere. Each door is a little different, a little odd, and so far they are all locked. He knows though, that none of these doors are his brother’s. “Tuna, where are you!” He takes a turn suddenly, feet taking him where they want. “Mitu-”

A hand grabs him, and yanks him aside into a room. Sollux goes to scream, but a hand covers his mouth quickly. The sound dies in his throat when he sees his brother’s face.

“Be quiet,” Mituna hisses. “Do you want something to find you?” He lets go, and Sollux pulls back. Mituna is in one of his old hoodies, the bee striped one that he spilled barbeque sauce on and ruined back when he was still in highschool; now it is as pristine and clean as the day he got it. The jeans look like a pair his mother had forced him to throw out before he went to college; threadbare and torn in the knees. His hair is as shaggy as ever. Sollux looks down and finds himself in his old blue and red windbreaker, the one from elementary school, and his favorite black jeans when he was a freshman. The fact that both are somehow fitting him barely resonates.

“Find me?” Sollux whispers as he looks back at his brother. “I don’t even know where we are!” 

“You’re dreaming, dumb ass,” Mituna says, voice going to a normal volume. “It’s easier for them to find you in here.”

“Where is _here_ , and who are you talking about?” Sollux asks as he stands in the hallway. This one looks different than the last one. It reminds him of home.

Mituna just shakes his head. “Come on,” he tells him. “With your pterodactyl screeching, I don’t know how long we’ve got until shit comes climbing out the walls.” 

“I wouldn’t have had to yell if you’d just show up,” Sollux grumbles before he starts following his brother. He falls into stride behind him, having to hurry a bit to keep up. Here in the halls, Mituna is taller than him again, like he was back when Sollux was still in middle school, and it is odd to have to look upwards to see Mituna. They turn another corner, and Mituna’s head perks up as he heads towards a door that looks just a little different. Sollux realizes it has the same knicks in the doorframe as Mituna’s bedroom door.

“Crap, hurry up,” he says as he jogs the last few yards. Sollux hurries behind him.

“What?” he asks as he is quickly ushered inside. “What is it?”

“Shut up. Do you hear her?” Mituna asks as he turns a large key in an ornate lock. It disappears immediately. 

“Hear who?” Sollux asks as he scratches under his left eye. It feels like he’s getting a headache.

“The girl, you dingbat. Do you hear her?” Anxiety is thick in Mituna’s throat.

“Tuna,” Sollux sighs as he turns to look into the room. “I have no idea wha-” He stops. It is not the room that gives him pause. Really it is quite disinteresting. It is just a round, dull room with the same patterns as their house. Slightly off white carpet, cream walls, and the same dull doors spaced evenly every half foot around the circle. The ceiling is textured and slopes up into a slight indent that gives the impression of a cone. There is a large circular light set in the center. 

Beneath the light, there is a girl. She is around Sollux’s age, a little shorter than Mituna, and she is screaming at him. At least, he thinks she is. He can’t hear her, just sees her mouth moving. Her face is twisted into something terrible, and there is snot running from her nose and tears in her eyes. Her hair falls like a curtain around her thin face, white blonde with blue that looks too bright on her washed out body. She stares at him with one steely blue eye, one milky. The light of the room glints off one of her arms. It looks like it is wrapped in metal.

“What?” Mituna asks as he comes to stand next to his brother. “What is it?” 

“I-it’s a girl,” Sollux says as he points to the center of the room. “Don’t you see her?” 

“Don’t you hear her?” Mituna scoffs back. Sollux shakes his head. All he hears are not quite there whispers and feels the building pressure behind his eye. “Then what’s she doing?” Mituna asks.

“Yelling,” he murmurs. “Just, yelling.”

“Well at least that matches up,” Mituna grunts. He sounds slightly relieved.

“What do you mean?” 

“All I hear is her yelling,” Mituna tells him as he looks just past where she is. “Be glad you can’t hear her. Voice is like a fork on a chalkboard.” He sticks one of his pinkies in his ear and jiggles it a little, like he could remove the sound just by doing that.

“What’s she saying?” Sollux asks.

“Some pretty messed up shit,” Mituna murmurs. “Every night I hear a little more. ‘I want you dead, get out of my life, I’m leaving’.” He walks forwards, eyes closing. “‘You don’t care, nobody cares.” The words he speaks match up with the girls mouth, although they are slightly delayed. “I’ll do whatever it fucking takes. And if you try and stop me, if you fucking dare-’”

Mituna opens his eyes a moment after the girl vanishes. Sollux can see an after image of her, mouth still open, like she wasn’t finished. 

“What the hell?” Sollux asks as he looks around the room. “Mituna, where did she go?”

Mituna shakes his head and looks at Sollux with a pained expression. “How the hell should I know,” he tells him. “All I know is that this is you all over again.”

Sollux blinks at his brother in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

Mituna turns to the center of the room. “After that thing Cronus was fucking knocked me out of my bunk, there was-"

“You mean it wasn’t Cronus?” Sollux cuts in. “Karkat wasn’t lying?”

Mituna gives him a stern look. “No, it wasn’t Cronus. It was someone named Kankri. All the bastard had to do was look at me, and next thing I knew I was airborne.” He shudders. Sollux wants to why Kankri was fucking Cronus, but he keeps his tongue in check. Mituna doesn’t seem even close to being done.

“When I got up, there was this girl. Real bitch, snarky as hell, and she sucks at answering questions. Took me almost five minutes to find out her name was Damara,” Mituna tells him. “She had grabbed me, tried to take me through a door, but I was so freaked that I ran. Went right through a wall and down a hallway. I opened a door, and ended up in this shit hole.” He raises his arms. “Damara followed me, the tenacious bitch. She was scary as hell at first. Chased me all over the damn place when I was out in the halls, like god damn Scooby-Doo, but in here, she couldn’t touch me.” He looks around the room. “I should have just let her catch me,” he mumbles.

The words twist in Sollux’s guts. He drops his shoulders, shoves his hands into his coat, and picks at his thumb. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mituna look at him a bit confused, then his face falls. When Mituna opens his mouth, Sollux almost prays he’ll take it back. Instead, Mituna continues. 

“I stayed in here a lot,” he starts gently, eyes tracing over the room. “At first nothing happened. I’d just sit, play games, read comics, whatever my brain could come up with. Made up some cool stories, got to live out being an X-Games skater. It was kind of cool.” As he says the words, Sollux sees items materialize for a few moments before disappearing. “By dream logic, I can now ride a halfpipe without landing on my head.” He chuckles a little at that; a bittersweet fondness in the sound. “Then I started hearing you.” There is no humor in the words. “‘You have to provide me the means, or whatever it is that you can do, to bring Mituna back from his coma’,” Mituna quotes. “Every fucking time it would start like that, completely out of the blue. Scared the shit out of me the first time. I had no idea what was going on. Thought you were in here with me. Searched for ya, but it didn’t take long before I realized it wasn’t you at all. Just an echo.” He kicks at the floor. “Then it came again, and again, and I’d hear a little more the next time, than a little more, but it would always start with that sentence. I know it by heart for fuck sake.” Mituna scrubs at his face. “I just listened at first. Somehow I knew it hadn’t happened yet, that you hadn’t already said this shit, so I just stayed and listened to what you were coming up with. At first, I thought, maybe, maybe you could wake me up, get me out of this hell hole. I was going insane being locked in here. Started having issues knowing what my brain was creating and what was actually floating around in here.” 

He lets out an ugly laugh. “I wanted to be alive so bad, I was willing to let you make a deal. Thought you were doing a decent job too, but then I started to hear the loopholes you were leaving. You never have been good at covering your own ass.” 

Sollux gives him a glare. “Like you could have done any better?” he bites out.

Mituna shrugs. “Maybe if I knew what the hell Karkat had been saying. I never heard his side, just your voice. Even without him, though, I knew that you weren’t paying enough attention to yourself. So one day I chose a door, left this room, and started to wander. So many doors, I figured one of them had to lead to you.” He shakes his head. “Yeah,” he scoffs. “That didn’t work.”

“What happened in the halls?” Sollux asks. He still feels bristled, but he can snap at Mituna later, he wants to know where the fuck he is.

Mituna’s eyes are tired as he looks up at his brother. “There are too many doors in here, Sollux,” he says, voice slightly shaking. “Some lead to the same place, most of them are locked up tight, and then there are others that open up to places that fucked me up so bad I would jolt right back to here.” He motions to the room around them. “I opened so many trying to find you, Mom, Dad. I found them finally. I tried to tell them, to warn them, Latula too, but Damara was always on my heals and did a good job of interfering. I tried Terezi’s door once, but it wasn’t just locked, it was barred, and nothing on this side did it. Kind of scary knowing that she can do shit like that.” His hand trembles as he slides it through his hair, and Sollux blinks to find his brother in a dressing gown like at the hospital. “And your door? Well, Damara had a nasty habit of hanging out right outside, along with that prick demon. When I did finally get through, I had a hell of a time actually reaching you. Still not sure if I actually got through to you with that one.”

“You did,” Sollux replies, though he can’t look at him. 

“So you just ignored me then?” Mituna’s voice has a tinge of anger to it.

“I thought it was just a dream, Tuna,” Sollux bites back. “I had no idea it was really you, and between all that fucking static that was coming out of your mouth, I had no idea what you were saying. Who were you even talking about? How did you know all those names?”

Mituna sighs as he rubs at his hair. “You weren’t the only one I heard in here. There are others.”

“Others?” Sollux questions as he shifts uncomfortably. The words make something wriggle in his stomach, making him feel slightly sick.

Mituna shakes his head. “Rufioh and John; some kid named Eridan; and Cronus of all people. I can hear them through the doors, but I can’t talk to them. I’ve tried, tried a lot, but they don’t talk back. I just gave up. I tried to just find you, but then they started showing up in the room.” He motions to the large empty space around them.

“After your voice would disappear, I’d hear them, saying things that made no sense. That girl,” he says as he turns to Sollux. “That was Vriska. I don’t know how I know that, but that’s her name. Whatever fucked up shit is going down, she’s next. Out of all of them, I hear her and Rufioh the most. I think she needs help but, I-I just...I don’t know what to do.” He sits down on nothing for a moment before a chair seemingly materializes. “I can hear them, clear as day, saying things in this room, but I can’t ever say anything back. I just listen and…” He takes in a deep shaking breath.

“And what, Tuna? What the hell is going on?” Sollux squats before his brother, not know what to do.

“I don’t know, I just hear snippets from them. Vriska screaming and Rufioh starting a deal mostly, but sometimes I hear the others. There isn’t much to their voices yet, but I can hear Cronus talking to someone, Eridan saying stuff I don’t really understand, and John talking about a knife. ”

“The one you tried to tell me about?” The question raises from the back of Sollux’s mind. Mituna had mentioned something about a knife back when he had first shown up.

Mituna nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I still don’t know much about it. But, I think that it has something to do with the deal Rufioh is going to make. I thought, maybe, if you found those guys they could help you, maybe help me, but I really have no idea what they can do. I only know as much as what John says, which isn’t a lot so far, and what Tavros has been able to tell me.”

“Tavros?” Sollux asks him.

Mituna’s face goes pale. “Shit,” he breathes as he looks around. Sollux turns away from his brother and looks as well. They aren’t in the round room anymore. They’re in a hallway; the first one.

“What’s going on?” Sollux asks him. When he turns back, Mituna is standing and back in his bee striped hoodie and faded jeans. 

“We gotta move,” Mituna says as he starts walking. “They’re looking for us.”

“Who is?” Sollux asks as he trots down the hall after his brother. “And how do you know Tavros?”

“Don’t say his name,” Mituna hisses. 

“Why not?” Why can’t he says Tavros’s name.

“Because the tall one doesn’t like it when people talk about him,” Mituna murmurs. “Every time I’ve talked to him through the doors, his master or whatever shows up.”

“Gamzee?” Sollux asks.

“Don’t say his name either,” Mituna snaps. There is terror on Mituna’s face, and it makes Sollux’s heart rate go up.

“Okay, okay,” Sollux replies as he follows Mituna. “Can you at least tell me how you found Ta- I mean T?”

“Just heard him crying through a door one day,” Mituna tells him as he walks ahead quickly, trying doors now and again that don’t open. “I had asked a question out loud, hadn’t expected him to respond. He told me about the tall guy and someone called the Secret Keeper. He was too afraid to say his name. All I know is the Secret dude has been trying to get the tall guy to let him borrow T so he could go get a knife for him. I’m guessing it’s the one John has.”

“What else did T say?” Sollux asks.

Mituna pauses, looks down two hallways, and takes the one to the right. “I’ll tell you when we get back to the room,” he tells him. “It’s not safe to talk out here. I’m not the only one who walks around in these damn hallways. ”

Sollux doesn’t want to wait, he wants to talk, because for fuck sake he hasn’t gotten to talk to his brother for months. Hell, he can’t even talk to him when he’s awake. 

“Fine, then let me ask you this,” Sollux says as evenly as possible. “Where have you been the last few days?"

Mituna says silent as he gives a shrug, his foot falls the only sound he makes.

"I’ve been looking all over for you in here," Sollux continues. "If you were so fucking worried about me being found, why did you wait so long to get me?”

“Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, bean pole, but being around you isn’t all that great for my psyche right now,” Mituna murmurs angrily as he takes another turn. 

Sollux speeds up. "So why show up now?"

“Because I couldn’t let you keep drawing attention to us,” Mituna snaps.

“So you were more worried about your own ass then mine,” Sollux bites out.

Mituna looks over his shoulder at Sollux with a glare.“That isn’t what I meant and you fucking know it,” Mituna snaps. 

“Then what do you fucking mean?” Sollux prods.

Mituna looks away and gives an angry sigh. “I am not talking to you about this shit out here.”

“Yeah? Well too fucking bad," he huffs with annoyance. "Do you know what it was like to watch you with a tube down your throat? All the shit I did with Latula and Terezi to try and get you to move? I mean we fuck- Stop walking away!" His shout rolls down the hall, louder than he could have imagined.

Mituna freezes. “What do you want me to say?” Mituna snaps. When he turns, his face is ugly with anger. “Thank you for giving up your happiness? For ruining yourself? That I'm sorry that you had Mom and Dad there trying to help your selfish ass while I was stuck in this fucking hellscape?" 

"Mom and Dad never tried to-" Sollux tries to start before Mituna's voice raises over his. 

“Oh cut the shit. They tried so much, and each time you just shot them down. I saw it in their dreams. Do you want to know what their worst fear was? Because it wasn’t me dying.” Bitterness laces Mituna’s words. “After the first month they were already ready for that. But you,” he continues as he stands facing his brother, almost seeming to grow with each word. “Oh they could barely handle the idea of losing you.”

“No they-”

“Shut it, Sollux. You wanted to know, so fucking listen. When I realized that the deal would only go through with me alive, you want to know what I did? I told them to pull my fucking plug!” The words ring through Sollux’s head and make his stomach roil. “I told my own, fucking parents to kill me, and you know what? They agreed with me. Sure they cried, but they wanted me to stop suffering, and like hell they wanted to take care of me like I am now. I came in on a nightmare of Mom’s where she was having to dress me like a toddler. Guess what she’s been having to do all week!”

Sollux doesn’t know how to respond as he feels vomit in the back of his throat.

“Do you know why I fucking panic every time I see you in the waking world?" Mituna seethes. Sollux's attempts to stammer something out, but Mituna cuts him off. "Each time I see you, I hear your voice making that fucking deal over and over in my head. I was ready to die to keep your ass out of hell, and now each time I see you, I’m reminded that the only reason I’m even still breathing is because my little brother sold himself to be some demon’s fuck toy!”

The words stab at something in Sollux’s heart. "I'm not his fuck toy!" Sollux snaps, and his face feels hot.

"That why I saw you about to ride his dick?" Mituna shouts. "Because you looked pretty fucking happy with his tongue down your throat."

Sollux takes a step back and stares at Mituna with wide eyes. “How the hell?” he asks as Mituna looks away. 

“I saw you ‘completing your deal’, Sollux,” he grits through his teeth. “Tried to stop you, but Damara got to me before I could do anything,” he glares at the wall, like it could be her.

Sollux stares at Mituna and picks at his thumb. The thought that it was actually Mituna that he saw down in hell makes him swallow back bile. “Karkat tricked me," he finally murmurs. "Put me in a dream, messed with my memories. I didn't know what was happening."

Mituna heaves a hard sigh and rubs at one of his eyes. "I know," he says, and anger leaks out of him. "I'm sorry, I know that but- It's just-...fuck." His shoulders drop and he shoves his hands back into his hoody. 

"What else did you see?” Sollux asks after a few moments. He's not sure if he wants to know.

“Not much,” Mituna assures him. “I was too busy talking to Damara. She got me to stop running long enough to finally explain that if I left here with her, then the deal wouldn’t work. You had made a deal to fix me, not bring me back from the dead. But at that point, I had gotten too deep in here to find the way out by myself. Hell, she was even lost. Couldn’t get out without my soul to help point the way.” 

He looks down the hall. “All these doors, and only one exit to the ‘corpse party’,” he mutters and shakes his head. “We had finally found the door out of here when you fed me that vial.” His voice is solumn. “Could smell Nannan’s double chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies on the other side.”

Sollux feels a pang in his heart at the name. Nannan has been dead for years. 

Mituna scratches at his skull before turning to look at Sollux. “So, forgive me for not being more thankful,” he tells him, tone tinged with bitterness. “It’s hard to do after getting a glimpse of the other side.” 

Sollux doesn't know what to say. Mituna doesn't add anything, just stands before him. 

"Come on," he finally says. "We shouldn't hang around here. After all that squawking, I think even Tavros could find us." He starts to walk again.

Sollux feels his stomach trying to reach his toes as he watches his brother. Mituna's shoulders are slumped, his hands shoved into his hoody, and his steps almost drag. Sollux knows the posture well from first hand experience. The emotions that accompany it are never good.

“Mituna,” he starts as he begins to follow him. “I’m so-” The door to his brother’s left bursts open, knocking him against the far wall. A strong, cold wind erupts from it; it smells of freezer burned meat and decaying sweet things. 

“There you are, motherfucker.” Gamzee’s voice echoes angry and cold down the hall. Sollux sees him standing in the doorway, skin a sickly purple and dark hair hanging in icy ringlets around his face. He’s wearing pants that threaten to fall from his hips, tattered purple circular patches over the dark cloth. Across his chest he wears a tight, black tank that looks like it has been painted onto his flesh, tattered though it is. On it, streaks of purple create rib like patterns on his chest. Behind Gamzee, through the door, Sollux sees flashes of snow covered tents and tall snapping flags. 

“My brother says you’ve been spouting off at the mouth,” Gamzee growls, and the door seems to expand to allow his horns passage. “All up and talking shit about me and my Tavbro." He reaches forwards, and Sollux knows that if Gamzee touches his brother, then there is a good chance he won’t be getting him back.

On shaking legs, he jolts forwards, grabs Mituna, and tugs him back away from the hand.

“Run!” he shouts. Mituna doesn’t have to be told twice. They go, feet pounding as they hear Gamzee rumble along behind them. 

“You know it’s motherfucking rude to talk about someone behind their back!” Gamzee roars after them. There is the sound of footsteps followed by a cold wind at their backs.

Mituna pulls ahead of his brother, turns a corner, and Sollux follows. He lets out a gasp as he is jerked through an open door. He grabs a banister to keep from being thrown down a flight of stairs, and Mituna slams the door shut behind them, locking another ornate lock that disappears.

They are standing in an unfinished basement at the top of a staircase. Sollux looks down and sees a guy sitting on the ground. In front of him are items; purple candles, a rabbit, a book. If it wasn’t for the hair, he would have thought it was Tavros.

“Mituna, what’s going on?” Sollux pants as he watches the guy start reaching for the rabbit cage. “What’s-”

“Wake up,” Mituna shouts at him as the door gives a shudder.

“What?” Sollux ask.

“I said fucking wake up!” Mituna shakes him. Sollux grips harder to the banister trying not to fall.

“What about you!?”

Mituna’s answer is a punch to Sollux’s face. It connects, right under his left eye, and Sollux falls backwards down the stairs.

He hits the floor with a jolt, and his eyes fly open. He lays on his bedroom floor panting, though it takes his brain a moment to realize where he is. His left eye still sees the basement for a few seconds longer before it fades into nothing, and his right sees only the dark of his room. “Holy fuck,” he says as he sits up. “What the hell was-What just-?” He shakes his head and looks toward Mituna’s room. His feet are under him before his brain can process what is happening.

“Mituna!” he roars as he hits his door, bounces off the hallway wall, and rips his brother’s door open. With his left eye, Sollux can see his brother high above the bed, entangled with something. It makes Sollux’s blood freeze and bladder threaten to release as he stares at it. It’s bigger than Karkat, and it’s wrapped around his brother.

“Mituna,” Sollux breathes before he rushes to the bed and grabs his brother by the shoulders. “Wake up, you idiot, wake up!” He shakes him, yells, and hears his parents thunder down the hall behind him. The back of his hand hits his brother's cheek, and in the light from the outside street lamp, he sees Mituna’s eyes fly open. For a moment, Mituna is in there, really in there, looking out at him as his overlay snaps back to his body. 

“Don’t go back,” he gasps as he grasps at Sollux. His eyes are clouding quickly. “D-don’t-” He lets out a choked sob as he clings to his brother. 

“What’s going on?” Simon asks as he rushes over. “What’s happening?”

Sollux doesn’t answer, just holds his brother, and stares at the thing that seethes just beyond his comprehension.

\---

Sollux doesn't go back to sleep. He's not letting Gamzee touch his brother again. Instead he sits on his bed and watches his brother in the dark. Above them, Sollux can see Gamzee circling them, waiting. Once or twice Sollux goes to get up, to shake Mituna awake, but by the time he reaches the door, Mituna is already back in his body. 

Staying up gives him time to think though. Who had told Gamzee they were talking about him and Tavros? He had said it was his brother, but who the fuck is that? The Secret Keeper? And why did he care if they were talking? His brain runs over what Mituna had told him, counting it out like binary until he finally comes to a conclusion; he needs more information.

He can’t get it until Mituna’s awake though, which is fine. There’s more shit he needs to go over. Keeping his left eye on Mituna, Sollux goes about his room and searches for his yellow legal pad. He pours over it, makes notes and circles things until a plan sits ready in his head. Lines of dialogue run circles around one another until the sun comes up, sitting ready and rehearsed in his mouth. His tongues wrap around them, taste them, and writhe with the need to spit them out.

When the sun starts to grey the skies, Gamzee finally dissipates. Sollux gets up immediately, throws on a shirt and jeans, pulls on his shoes, and heads downstairs. “I’m going for a walk!” he yells through the house as he grabs a hoody from the banister.

"Where to?" His father calls, surprisingly from the kitchen. Sollux pokes his head in for just a moment and finds his father at the kitchen table, a mug in hand. His eyes are bleary as he sips his coffee. It looks like Sollux wasn’t the only one keeping some sort of vigil. 

"TZ’s," he replies as he turns to leave.

"This early?" his dad calls in confusion.

Sollux doesn't reply. It's more or less the truth. He just needs to make a stop first. 

The drainage ditch is tinged with frost, and the mud glistens with ice crystals. In the first strands of sunlight, the place looks eerie. Even though it has rained since the first night he met Karkat, Sollux can still see places in the mud that remind him too much of his own footprints. 

"Karkat," Sollux calls out into the woods. "Get your ath out here. We need to talk." Early morning bird calls come to his ears instead. They are very far away. "Come on you fucker, I know you're out there."

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

Sollux turns to find Karkat sitting in a tree above him. 

"What?" Karkat asks with a smirk. The demon plucks something from his hand, chews, then spits. Something small taps Sollux's glasses. “Bad dreams?" 

Sollux ignores him. "What the hell does Gamzee want with my brother?" Sollux calls up to him.

Karkat raises an eyebrow in mock surprise. "No idea what you're talking about," he replies before eating another small item. Sollux glares at him. He doesn't give a shit about what Karkat looks like right now; how it makes pressure build behind his eye. Compared to seeing Gamzee, he's the fucking Pillsbury doughboy. 

"Cut the shit,” Sollux calls up. “He hurts him, you have to answer for it."

"When the hell did we say that? I don’t remember him being anywhere in the deal." Karkat chuckles.

Sollux gives him a sneer. "When you gave me buyerth insurance, KK." 

The sentence makes Karkat glare down at him. "The hell did you just call me?" Karkat asks as he shifts. He's in front of Sollux in a second, and Sollux sees what he’s been eating. In his hand is a half eaten pomegranate. It looks like a torn open heart.

"What, don't like pet names?" This is fucking dangerous, and probably a horrible idea, but Sollux needs answers and he's going to get them however he can.

"I don't know," Karkat growls. "Let me see how it fucking tastes." 

Sollux doesn't shy away from the hand that grabs for his head, in fact he moves down into the kiss before Karkat can pull him in for it. His teeth click against Karkat's, his mouth harsh as he grabs Karkat by his stupid sweater collar and pulls him closer. Karkat lets out a sound of surprise before his hands grip at Sollux’s sides. It gives Sollux a skewed moment of satisfaction, and he keeps kissing, listening, and when Karkat starts panting, Sollux pulls away.

"Tell me what's going on or I'll thend you away again, and I'll make sure you can't come back until the last possible day." The lines come easily, the first of many.

"You can't do that," Karkat snarls.

"Never thaid how long I could send you away for," Sollux tells him. "That means I can specify."

Karkat's eyes flash as they stand at the bottom of the hill. Cool air ruffles their hair, and the sun turns the sky shades of red and orange. 

"Where’d all this come from?” Karkat asks as his hands dig into Sollux’s sides. “I’ve never seen you like this.” He takes in a deep sniff. “Resolution smells good on you, and that fucking anger.” He leans upwards, and Sollux yanks him back by the sweater. Karkat lets out a growl.

“Talk, or you won’t be thmelling anything from me for a while,” Sollux says.

Karkat grits his teeth and glares, but he does finally speak. “Fine,” he tells him. “But I get a free feeding. One emotion. I want that resolution."

"You can take the anger,” Sollux tells him, and jerks his face close, puts them almost nose to nose. He makes sure his mouth is just barely a fingers width away from Karkat’s. “In return, you tell me everything you know about Gamzee chasing Mituna.” He keeps his voice low. Karkat’s fingers flex and he feels the demon's throat brush his knuckles as he swallows. 

"I'll tell you everything I can without getting my ass ki-"

"Everything,” Sollux interrupts. “If you skimp on a single detail, both deals are void. And no IOUs,” he continues. “You tell me today, before the sun goes down in your world, or whatever the fuck your equivalent is." His voice is stern. "If not, then I might as well tell you to fuck o-"

"Fine!" Karkat snaps. “Deal, just shut up and let’s go.” His fingers grip Sollux tight.

Sollux gives a smirk. 

Karkat’s eyes narrow. "Fucking prick. You're getting smarter," he growls as the world starts to change.

"And you're getting greedy," Sollux replies. His stomach roils as the world melts and he finds himself back in Karkat's home. He is shoved against a wall the second it solidifies. A hand grabs Sollux by the back of the skull, and he is forced to bend forwards. He doesn’t fight the kiss. Sooner Karkat gets what he wants, the quicker Sollux gets his information.

Karkat's tongue fights against Sollux's, probing deep enough to make Sollux gag. He swallows the saliva, and feels the heat of the new deal sink down into his belly. 

Karkat pulls back, and Sollux watches him visibly swallow. "Pendant, off," Karkat pants. "Can't feed with that shit on you."

Sollux does as he's told, but keeps a hold of it.

"Put it down," Karkat snarls. "You can't be touching it."

“I know.” Sollux shoves it into the front of his hoody instead, and then, he takes it off. He turns it inside out as he goes. By the time it's off of him, it is a ball of cloth. He keeps it clutched in his hand, fingers only touching fabric.

"This work, KK?" he asks. His rage boils under his skin the second he asks. There is also a shimmer of satisfaction at the look on Karkat’s face. He was going to take the damn thing, Sollux is sure of it, but as long as Sollux has a hand on his hoody, there’s no chance of that.

Karkat's mouth descends in a second, tongue probing. He grinds himself against Sollux, and it just makes rage flare deeper inside him. Sollux’s fingers tear at Karkat, Karkat’s clothing changed to the skin tight pants that go up just a tad too high. Sollux’s erection aches as Karkat rocks against him, stroking all the emotions he can, though anger is what stays strong and at the forefront. Sollux pushes at him, sucks Karkat’s tongue in his mouth, and Karkat does exactly as he suspects. He sucks, hard, and the anger flows out. Sollux doesn't try to keep it. He holds fast to his resolve instead, waiting as Karkat drains away the agreed upon emotion. As soon as Karkat's mouth is off of his, Sollux's hand plunges into the hoody, and pulls out the pendant. His erection immediately starts to lag, and his head clears.

"Start talking," Sollux says. 

"Give me a minute," Karkat murmurs as he stands with his head against Sollux's chest. His hips move gently against Sollux, as if he is riding out the last of an orgasm. "Let me at least fucking enjoy it."

"Afraid you won't have time for that, Daddy." The voice is mirthful and sensuous, and if not for the pendant, Sollux knows that his loins would be doing things he wouldn’t approve of.

The most interesting reaction to the voice, however, comes from Karkat. He goes rigid against Sollux, fingers digging rivulets into his skin. Sollux turns towards the voice, and finds a man standing a short ways away. He has light hair, tanned skin, and is wearing nothing more than jeans and a pair of pointed shades. To Sollux’s right eye, he looks like any ordinary human, probably in his late twenties, early thirties. To his left eye, he is a writhing mass that instills images of flesh and dark places in his mind.

"Who are you?" Sollux asks, voice shaking as fear and curiosity take over for, what would have been, annoyance. He needs answers, damn it, not another demon.

"I'm-," he starts before Karkat cuts in. 

"He's one of two reasons I don't fucking take souls anymore," Karkat growls. He pulls away from Sollux.

"Aww, come on Daddy," the guy whines. "We weren't that bad." 

"Yes, you fucking were, Dirk," Karkat spits out the name

"It's just Bro now," the man says, smirk on his face. "Or did you not hear?"

"More like I don't care,” Karkat snaps. “What are you even doing here? I told you and that insufferable piece of shit brother of yours to never come back."

"And I gladly would have stayed away," Bro replies duly. "But I've been sent by the Lord and Sinner himself to come get you."

Sollux watches Karkat visibly tense. "Yeah right. Why don’t you just state your real business so I can throw your ass back into the spaces between where I don’t have to look at your infuriating smirk anymore"

“That is my real business,” Bro states as he strides forwards. "You see, our lil’man is going through some retraining. Grisly stuff, as you know. Really time consuming and invasive.” He comes to stop just before Karkat. “Our Lord just got down to Dave’s core yesterday, and low and behold, he found a few things that Dave really shouldn’t have. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you Daddy?"

Sollux keeps his eyes glued to Karkat. Each word makes Karkat turn more and more rigid. “You’re lying.” Sollux is surprised at the tinge of fear in the demon's voice. 

"Wish I was, but I’m not,” Bro says with a shrug. “So drop your dish, Daddy. Dinners over, though I'd be more than happy to finish him for you." Bro's glassed slide down a little, and Sollux sees eyes that no human could ever have. The irises are orange, much like molten stone, and the pupils are nowhere near human.

"He's mine," Karkat snarls, and Sollux is a tad surprised at the way the shape in his left eye strikes out at Bro. Bro shrinks back only slightly.

"Still don't like sharing?" Bro pouts. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You only let Dave and I have the leftovers.”

"Get out," Karkat replies, voice dark. "I’m done listening to your vocal equivalent of a dying bunny. I’m in the middle of a deal. I'll come as soon as I'm done here." He turns back to Sollux, and Sollux watches Bro. The smirk he gives doesn't look good.

"Sorry, Daddy," Bro says before he appears behind Karkat with the same strange speed. He wraps an arm around Karkat. "There's no time to waste." He gives Sollux a wink over his shades. 

Karkat barely gets out a squawk of rage before they disappear. Sollux stands frozen, back still against the wall. What the fuck?

"Karkat?" he calls as he takes a cautious step forwards. "What the fuck is going on, KK? We had had a deal."

There is no response, just the gentle thrum of the world. He turns slowly, eyes looking around the room. With his glasses, he can see the hearts and veins clearly, and in his left eye, he can see things pulse. On shaking legs, he goes and sits in a chair made out of things he doesn’t want to process. He picks at his thumb and looks around the room. Through the windows, he can see that the light outside is dim behind the haze. Here in hell, he doesn’t know what that means. Sollux waits.

Patience and resolve sits heavy in him as he listens to the ever going heartbeat. The tapping of his foot falls into time with it, his breathing, and then his heart falls in sync. Curiosity suddenly takes over. It feels like something is gently tugging at his chest, just behind his heart. Part of him wants to stay put and wait for Karkat, but the rest of him wants to know what that is. Hell, maybe it could help him get some answers. 

“Beats thitting here,” Sollux murmurs as he gets up. He’s sure Karkat will be able to find him no matter where he goes in the castle.

His chest leads him up the stairs of the grand front hall, and down the way he had gone with Karkat the first time. It is different walking through the halls by himself with only his footfalls and the heart beats to keep him company. The sound is almost soothing, though there is still an edge to it that makes him constantly check over his shoulder. The pull at his heart pulls him from place to place as he passes through the wide halls and grand archways. From time to time, he stops to stare at grizzly paintings and marvel at chandeliers that pulse with hearts. He passes a set of familiar double doors and keeps walking. He isn’t being lead in there.

The castle is larger than he could have imagined, and by the time he comes to a door in a more sparsely decorated area, his feet are sore and he has broken out into a decent sweat from the world’s strange heat. The tug is strong in front of the round, wood door. He reaches out, grabs the handle, and pushes. Inside, he is surprised to find a circular room that contains what looks like hundreds of books, a few chairs, and lamps. The bookshelves are inlaid into the stone of the castle itself, and every few feet there is a gap. The gaps are shallower, circular, and there are hundreds of them. They are all empty. Except for one. It sits in the center of the far wall, the central most hole in the room. In it, a single heart flutters. 

Sollux's fingers grip at his chest. 

"Looks like he's finally started his collection."

Sollux jumps and spins, heart racing.

Bro is standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. "Enough slots for fifty years it looks like. Generous to think you'd last that long. Sucks that he won't get to finish it."

"What do you mean?" Sollux asks him, voice warry. 

“This is his reading room,” Bro replies with instead. He goes to walk past Sollux, hands reaching out to grab a book. He pulls it down and smirks at it. “Tristan and Isolde,” he reads before putting it back. “I don’t know why he’s so fascinated with this shit,” Bro says as he grabs another book. “He never even finishes them, just writes his own ending.”

“You mean that wasn’t a joke?” Sollux's curiosity gets out before he can stop himself.

Bro gives a chuckle. “Yep. Daddy’s got himself a little romantic streak.” He pulls off another book before switching it with the first. He begins to do it with other books as he talks. “He always said he was going to use this room for Dave and I, star crossed lovers and all that shit. Tear our hearts out and put them all together in one place, evenly spaced, never touching.” Bro lets out a laugh that sounds like silk sheets rubbing together. “That didn’t happen.”

"What are you talking about?" Sollux asks him, heart thudding. He doesn’t like being left alone with this guy. Bro doesn’t feel like Karkat, and that worries him.

“Glad he found someone worthy of the place,” is Bro’s response. He looks right at Sollux as he says it, and Sollux’s stomach drops. Bro moves with the same quick speed as Karkat and shoves his nose into Sollux's neck. Sollux freezes as he feels warm breath against his flesh, the demon not quite touching him. 

"Mmmm, no wonder,” Bro hums as he takes a deep breathe. “Wanna fool around?" he asks, and his voice curls deliciously around Sollux's throat. "No strings attached. Just a good 'ol fashioned fucking."

Sollux swallows. "N-no thanks."

Bro sighs, but backs up. "Damn," he sighs. "Would have been nice to have a full meal. Oh well." He shrugs. "Maybe when I'm back up top I'll stop by. Grab a bite." He grins wide, and Sollux stares at his teeth. They would look human if not for the slight sharpness to each one. "So what do you want to do then? Just shoot the shit?"

"About what?" Sollux asks. 

"I don't know,” Bro says with a shrug. “Tell you my life story if you take that thing off your neck.” Bro motions to the pendant. 

"Pretty sure you'd kill me if I did that," Sollux replies. 

"Can't hurt you in Daddy's domain," Bro sighs, like it is such a shame. “But if you did, I might be able to persuade you to give me a taste of what Daddy dearest has been feeding on.”

"Why do you keep calling him that?" Sollux asks. He does not want to talk about ‘feeding’ with this guy.

"Damn yourself then make a deal. He could be yours too," Bro replies with a wink.

"Damn myself?" Sollux asks, brain spinning. Bro's overlay shifts slightly in Sollux’s left eye. It isn’t any different than how Karkat’s moves, but beneath it there is something strange. Sollux focusses on it, looking past the flashes of flesh. He can see a shape, a silhouette. 

Bro is right in his face. "It's not polite to stare, Brighteyes," Bro growls. Sollux blinks, falls back, and Bro goes back to being a nonsensical mass in his left eye again.

“What was that?” Sollux pants as Bro takes a step back.

"If you want to know, all you gotta do is take that itty-bitty bit of metal off," Bro says as he looks over his shoulder. Sollux looks where he does. Outside, the light is almost gone. "You’ve only got a few more minutes."

"What do you mean I only have a few more minutes?” His voice comes out a bit frantic. “You said you can’t hurt me here? And where’th Karkat? When is he going to be back?”

Bro haves an insincere sigh. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad new, Brighteyes," he says as he pulls what looks like a scroll out of his pocket, which should be absolutely impossible. "But he won't be coming back."

Somewhere a clock starts chiming. Bro jerks the scroll in his hand, and Sollux watches as a ream of paper spills down to around Bro’s ankle. "Smaller than I thought,” Bro mutters before clearing his throat. “Under article 413 of our laws, Karkat Vantas, the Demon of Hearts, hereby forfeits his deal with one Sollux Captor." Bro’s voice booms through the room.

“Wait, wh-” Sollux tries to ask before Bro continues, voice resonating with the chimes that ring through the air.

"Reason for the termination is due to his inability to uphold his end of a deal within the designated time constraints. I, Bro Strider, one of his sired, stand in his stead to witness this deal as forfeit." He says it as the last chime rings, and Sollux crumples to all fours. His stomach is on fire, and he wretches. The heat travels up his throat, over his tongue, and two charred looking lumps fall to the ground. He pukes again, and blackened bile and burnt blood splashes over them. 

Bro walks forwards with a smirk. "By our laws you can renew your deal with another demon if desired,” he tells him before squatting down in front of Sollux. “What do you say, Brighteyes? Wanna give me a shot? I can promise you, I'm better in the sack than Karkat is." He extends his free hand, and the sharpness of his nails isn’t lost on Sollux.

Sollux gasps around the pain in his throat as he stares at Bro's hand. The deals over? He's free? "Fuck off," is Sollux's pained answer.

Bro frowns. "You don't gotta be a dick about it." He retracts his hand and stands. "Guess I should get you topside then," he sighs. He stares up at the ceiling with a longing look. "Suck your dick if you let me go with ya. Promise I’ll be a good little boy."

"No deal," Sollux rasps. What the fuck is going on?

Bro shrugs. "Maybe I can get Daddy dearest to take me along when he visits then."

"What?" Sollux pants. That’s not right. “Deals over, he can’t.” He manages to get his feet under himself, and stands.

“You weren’t paying much attention were you,” Bro chuckles before he clears his throat. Karkat's voice comes from between his lips. "If I do fuck up, you and Mituna get off scot free, and I have to go look for some other off kilter, caffeine addicted adrenaline junky to feed off of.” Bro clears his throat and smirks. "Never said he couldn't come back for you after he finds one. Says it right here in paragraph 79." He shakes the scroll gently. “You can read it for yourself.” 

Sollux's head spins. He stumbles, and grasps at a nearby table before he can go down. That's not-he couldn't have-

"Sure you don't want to make another deal?" Bro asks as he rolls the scroll back up. "It's not going to take him long to find another meal once he's done with Dave." He comes close again. "I won't ask for your soul, or even your emotions." Bro's voice is soothing. "Hell, I'll even make the sex optional.” He puts the scroll back in his pocket, the item disappearing into the denim as if it were made of air. “All you've got to do is find someone for me, and in return, I'll keep Karkat off your back."

Sollux's brain reels. Karkat can come back and he can hurt him? What about his friends? Did he fuck up there? But Bro says he can help him, keep Karkat away. He’d just have to find someone for him, but...

Behind him, Sollux's heart calls to him from the wall. It beats just as quickly as his; a double bass in his chest. Sollux looks back up at Bro, sees his smirk, the way he holds himself; in his left eye, Bro looks as horrible as ever.

"I'll pass," Sollux gaps.

“You sure?” Bro asks him, concern in his voice. “This is a one time offer.”

“I’d rather take my chances,” Sollux replies. 

Bro's face twists into something dark and his overlay writhes. "Then good luck, Brighteyes,” he says evenly. “I’ll see you and your brother in your dreams."

Bro flicks his hand, and Sollux gaps as the world rushes down to meet him. The next time he vomits, he is kneeling in half frozen mud. 

"Shit," he pants as he drinks in the air. He struggles to stay on his knees, body feeling weak and feverish. As soon as the world stops tilting, Sollux moves to get up. He is barely able to stumble up the embankment, and has to use the trees to hold himself up. The three blocks to Terezi's house are tortuous as cold air slides down his burnt throat and cools the sweat on his body.

By the time he rings her doorbell, he's gasping. He rings the bell, waits, rings again, waits, does it again. It takes six rings before Terezi comes to the door, her hair sleep rumpled. She gives a single sniff of the air before she looks wide awake.

"What happened?" she questions.

Sollux opens his mouth, closes it, swallows, and tries again. "How quickly can you get those stones inlaid?" he asks, voice tight and horse.

"Quicker than you can carve," she tells him. "Let me get dressed, come in." 

Sollux stagers inside. At the top of the stairs, he can see Latula, her sinuses swollen and puffy around her nose. 

“Who is it?” he hears called from one of the upper bedrooms.

“It’s Sollux, mom,” Latula calls back. “What’s going on,” she adds as she glares down at Sollux.

"Get dressed. We're doing Mituna's pendant today," Terezi tells her. 

Sollux sees Latula's face flash in fear for only a moment before she disappears from the banister. Sollux follows Terezi through the kitchen and down a short hall to her room. It's mostly clean, with pretty much everything put away and in it’s place. There is only clothing on the floor. 

"Look at the wall," she directs Sollux as she goes to the closet. He's too tired to care why. He wants to collapse, drink something maybe, but he stands with his back to her and his eyes on the wall. It's covered in highly contrasted photos, all of them blown up and layered. He had almost forgotten that this exists.

He sees himself and Mituna, Latula and Terezi, other students from school, and Terezi’s parents. He busies himself with them, follow the bright colors upwards until two shocks of blue stop him. In the upper most left he sees a face, young and round, framed by dirty blonde hair, and it is so familiar. Terezi is standing next to her, normal glasses on her face and green eyes bright. 

"Hey, Terezi," he asks as he stares at the upper left corner. "Who's that?"

"Gotta be more specific than that." Terezi calls. There is the sound of clothing ruffing.

"The girl in this top picture, the one with blue eyes."

Terezi moves next to him, arms pushing into her jacket. 

"I thought I told mom to take that one down," Terezi grumbles. 

"Who is it?" he urges as his left eye itches. 

“Do we really have time for a history lesson?” Terezi asks him.

“Pleathe, just answer the fucking question,” Sollux snaps. It costs him a coughing fit.

"Fine,” Terezi grumbles when he’s done. “Though I’m amazed you don’t remember that story.”

“Story?” He’s getting mental whiplash, and he just wants it to stop.

“The bitch I knew back in Ohio before we moved. The one who held my eyes open during nap time when I was six, and forced me to stare at the sun. Vriska Serket.” Terezi says the name with a sneer. 

Sollux doesn't say anything as he stares at the image. Realization kicks him swiftly in the side of the head and he starts to topple.

“Woah, shit,” Terezi says as she catches him. "Sollux, what's wrong?" She asks him as she leads him to the bed. 

"TZ," Sollux says through wheezing breaths. "I saw Vriska last night."

"What? Where?” Terezi asks, nose scrunched. “She's like three states away."

"I saw her in my dreams, TZ," he says as he looks up at her. “Mituna says she's next."

Terezi doesn't reply, just stares at Sollux. 

"I'm ready to go," Latula calls from the front hall. They don't move. 

"Sis," Terezi calls back after a moment. "Grab some water for the car."

"Why?" Latula calls. 

Terezi's eyes stay trained on Sollux. "Because, we’re going to need it!”.

There is an annoyed sound front the front hall, and the thumping of feet. 

Terezi goes to her door and grabs her cane before coming back to Sollux. "Come on," she says as she offers her arm. "You have a lot of explaining to do."

Sollux gets up, and lets her lead him to the car. Terezi sits in the front seat, Sollux in the back, and when Latula arrives with the water bottle and keys, Sollux feels like he is close to passing out. Latula hands him the water, and he drinks it thankfully, even if it doesn’t sit quite right.

“Alright, Sollux,” Terezi says as Latula fires up the engine. “Start talking.”

Closing his eyes, he looks at Terezi through his left eyelid. She looks stoic and straight backed, and impossibly, she is facing him. "There's this place filled with doors when Mituna and I dream," he starts as evenly as he can, doing his best to ignore the pain in his throat. He takes another sip of water, a deep breathe, and continues. His resolve strengthens with each word, his voice levels out, and he explains all he can to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long everyone. This will continue in Lost Boys where we will get a good look at the insanity that Vriska is slowly getting herself mixed up in. Hope to see you there!

**Author's Note:**

> Just so you all know, this is not the final story line. There will be 3 of these, because I realized y'all are going to need a little more background before the main story can make sense. Each one will be 2-3 chapters. I promise, everything will be resolved.
> 
> So don't worry, I won't throw too much at ya.
> 
> Yet.


End file.
